Legend of The Crimson Avatar
by SaiyanShinobi
Summary: While on the run, a fugitive Azula meets a young boy who is more than he first appears to be. He introduces her to the world of shinobi and her life is changed forever. Naruzula, Taara/GaaToph. A Naruto/Avatar crossover.
1. The Boy from the Sky

**Disclaimer: My name is not Masashi, Mike, or Bryan so I own neither Naruto nor Avatar: The Last Airbender. **

"Speech"

'_Thoughts'_

"**Demon/spirit/summon speech"**

"Japanese speech"

"_Jutsu/ Attacks_"

**This is the rewrite of my first story "Avatar: The Last Airbender and The First Shinobi." It's going to be pretty different the first version. I noticed that when most people rewrite a story they change a few things, but mostly keep it the same. But me? I totally revamp it. Instead of starting at the beginning of both Naruto and ATLA it's going to be set post-ATLA and post-Naruto Part I. And the Naruto universe is as AU as I could get it while still being able to fit into canon Naruto, if that makes any sense. **

**The last story was going to be more in an Avatar format but I've been getting into more manga so now it's going to be more manga-like. That basically means instead of stand-alone chapters there are going to be arcs.**

**So with that enjoy.**

* * *

The Boy from the Sky

A cloaked figure ran through the dark forest, the only source of light being the waning moon in the sky.

Legs aching and lungs on fire, the figure looked around for any sign of other people before stopping for a breather. Though the figure didn't detect anyone around they darted into some nearby bushes. This person was not going to be caught off guard, hidden in the foliage, aware of their immediate surroundings and legs ready bolt, or pounce, at a moment's notice.

After a minute of resting the figure got ready to take off again when a twig snapped behind them. "Did you honestly think you can sneak up behind me?" The cloaked person cried, their voice female, as she turned around and unleashed a wave of blue fire into the darkness, lighting a couple of shrubs on fire. "And for your naiveté you'll suffer my wrath."

The culprit ran out, turning out to be a frightened weasel rat. The girl stared after the fleeing animal, eye twitching.

"Over there!" A voice shouted.

She cursed. Looking back she spotted three men in Fire Nation armor coming after her. Cursing once more she ran off deeper into the woods. '_Even animals are turning against me._' she thought bitterly.

One of the soldiers stayed behind while the other two chased after her. The lone soldier pulled out a small black ball with a fuse. He lit the fuse then chucked it in the air. The ball exploded in a loud boom and bright flash. The two soldiers looked back at the light. "The signal's been sent. Backup should be here soon. Remember our job is to keep her within our sights while leaving a trail to follow. Colonel Wong told us not to engage in combat until backup arrives."

"Is she really that dangerous?" the other soldier asked. "I mean I heard she went insane."

"Don't you know the crazy ones are the ones to watch out for?"

"But she's just a-"

"What? A teenager? A girl? Remember that _teenage girl_ practically single handily conquered Ba Sing Se last summer. Crazy or not, Princess Azula will always be dangerous."

* * *

It was two months ago when Avatar Aang fought and defeated Phoenix King Ozai.

It was two months ago when Princess Azula dueled her brother Zuko for the title of the Fire Lord which resulted in her defeat and her nervous breakdown.

It was two months ago when Princess Azula was shipped off to a mental asylum.

And it was a week ago when Azula broke out with the help of some rebels.

Since then she had been traveling with these rebels, who called themselves the Phoenix Alliance, to meet up with one of their generals. Things were going fine until the ship they were traveling on was attacked by pirates. That's right, pirates.

Since before even the war began the Fire Nation has been great in keeping pirates out of its waters. But two months with her brother in charge and all that changes.

While the pirates did hit them with a surprise attack, they were but a group of non-bending uncouth brutes while Azula and her allies were trained soldiers, elites. Driving the pirates off wouldn't be too difficult of a task and it was looking that way however before they could completely fight them off a Fire Navy ship that noticed the battle arrived on the scene and had quickly recognized the fugitive princess.

Not being equipped to fight a Cruiser they were forced to retreat. The Cruiser immediately followed them and after an intense battle the rebel ship was sunk. Azula, having foreseen this outcome, had had the ship head for the nearest island for the entire duration of the fight so by the time they were sunk they weren't too far from the coast. And with the use of jet skis they were able to get there quickly though not without a few, or six, causalities.

With those six gone along with the crew that was left behind on the ship, Azula was down to just three men. Two days later two of the men stayed behind to hold off pursuers and a day after that the last one was killed by a Yu Yan Archer. That was two days ago.

Since then Azula had been travelling through the Fire Nation wilderness, only going into towns at night to steal food or to stowaway on ships sailing between islands. Azula barely slept for caution, not fear, Azula doesn't fear anything, of being attacked in her sleep, only falling asleep when it was impossible for her to stay awake. And she's fought off Fire Nation soldiers twice plus a bounty hunter.

She was exhausted and the town where she was to meet up with this general, Golden Spark Town, was still two days away on foot and she was supposed to be there three days ago. '_Two more days. In my condition that might as well be two years.' _

Azula jumped over a bush and landed right on the edge of a small river cliff. Waving her arms to regain her balance she vaguely recalled the same thing happening to her when she fought the Avatar and her brother last spring. Remembering how she regained her balance that time she jumped and spun her body. She was able to get one foot on the ground before it crumpled and she was sent tumbling into the river.

Azula pulled herself onto land grumbling and steam rising off her body. Climbing to her feet Azula instantly cried out and fell back down. She glared at her left ankle; it had been sprained in the fall. Azula let out a rage fueled scream, fire spewing from her mouth. "What else could go wrong?" she growled.

A blast of fire flew over her head with several more following after it. She rolled as they hit the spot she was just occupying. Turning around she saw a dozen soldiers jumping into the water, five of them mounted on three different komodo rhinos.

With her sprained ankle she wouldn't get far running away before they caught up with her. While Mongoose Dragons were the better runners, Komodo Rhinos were the better swimmers. Plus the river wasn't very deep, six feet at best. So running away was out. Confronting them now wasn't a much better option but it was better than wasting what little energy she had left and going through the pain of trying to flee only to have to fight them anyway.

Before they could all get on land Azula started raining bolts of fire upon the soldiers who were still in the river and couldn't defend themselves. She managed to get three of them before an arrow struck her in the arm. Hissing in pain Azula looked towards the direction the arrow had come from. _'Of course there's a Yu Yan archer among them.'_ And if there was one then there was at least another. The Yu Yan usually worked with no less than two in a group.

Seemingly distracted, the leader launched a fireball at Azula. Snapping to attention, Azula dispersed it with her leg. With a yelp she yanked the arrow out of her arm blood spilling from the wound. "Give it up. Even you can't fight us all in your condition." The leader, a captain, Azula noted, remarked.

Azula said nothing, settling for lighting the arrow on fire then dropping into a fighting stance. He was right though. She only had one good leg and one good arm and she was dizzy and lightheaded. It would take a miracle for her to get away now.

A big flash light brightened the night sky accompanied with a loud boom.

Everyone, shocked, looked up for the source. There in the sky, about a mile or so away, was a gigantic glowing white vortex, golden bolts of energy crackling around it.

"What the hell is that?" One soldier exclaimed.

Azula stared at the swirling mass of light with trepidation. Her eyes widened when three streaks of white light flew out the vortex that disappeared soon after. One flew north, one flew west, and the last one flew in their direction.

They all watched as the light flew closer and lower_ 'It's going to crash nearby' _Azula realized. Azula started to think of a way to use this to her advantage when the light ricocheted off a tree and headed right towards them. _'Oh you have got to kidding-'_

It hit the water and skipped on the surface once… twice… three times before bouncing on land. As the thing (Which lost the right to be called a light when its glow disappeared when it hit the water) rolled past her, Azula thought she heard it scream. She shook her head. There was no way that thing was a person.

It came to a halt when it rolled into a tree letting the Fire Nation natives see that it was some sort of hump shaped thing covered by a cloth. Everyone stared at it in silence for a moment. One of the soldiers stepped towards the mystery object. "What in the-" The object shot up, scaring everybody.

"Damn! That hurt!" the 'thing' shouted. The thing turned out to be a young boy about 12 or 13 years old with unusual features. He had spiky hair, which wasn't unheard of, but was really rare. His hair was yellow, which Azula assumed was dyed (Because no one had natural yellow hair). On his cheeks were three whiskers-like markings.

His clothing consisted of a dark green shirt that only had one short left sleeve. On the sleeve was a crest of a grey cloud with a yellow thunderbolt shooting out of it, all in a white circle. Over the shirt was a sleeveless dark crimson vest that was left unzipped and on the back there was a bright red spiral. On his sleeveless right arm he had on a white wristband. He wore black three quarter pants with a red stripe going up the side of each pant leg, a red belt, and black sandals. Strapped to his right leg was a black rectangular pouch and a larger round tan pouch was attached to the back of his pants.

On both of his arms were tattoos of a grey dragon spiraling down the length of the arm and ending with its head on the back of his hand. They looked like airbending tattoos except for the long skinny point on one side that was the dragon's horn and the more blunted point that was the dragon's mouth.

The boy patted his forehead which was covered by a black headband with a metal plate engraved with a symbol that looked a bit like a leaf. "I think this is the first time my forehead protector has actually been used to protected my forehead." The boy muttered. "So are you still alive?" When no one responded the boy blinked. "Ero-sennin?" He looked around then groaned. "Great. Where the hell did that pervert disappear to?"

The soldiers looked at each other then back at the boy then turned to the captain. "What do we do sir?"

"He's just a brat. He's not as important as the princess. One of you go grab him while the rest of us capture her." The captain said.

"Is he looking at us?" One of the soldiers asked. The others looked at the kid and shrugged. Indeed his head was turned towards their direction but his eyes were squinted shut, as they had been since he crashed, so they couldn't tell if he was at anything let alone them.

He pointed at them which made them tense. "Whoa. Where the hell did you guys come from?"

The soldiers face faulted.

"WE'RE THE ONES WHO SHOULD BE ASKING THAT!"

"You only _just _noticed us!"

He stared at them for a moment, eyes still closed, before walking away. "I'm thirsty."

"Now he's ignoring us!"

He saw Azula and one of his eyebrows rose. "Man, you look like crap."

Azula stared at him blinking. She should have burnt the boy to a crisp for saying that but her anger was overshadowed by the shock of someone actually saying that to her. No one had ever said anything like that to her, especially so… matter-of-factly. Before she could utter a response, the boy had already started walking away toward the river.

He was just five steps away from the river when a blast from a fireball lit the ground in front of him on fire. The boy calmly stared at the fire then looked back at a soldier who still had his fist extended then back to the fire and kicked dirt on the flames. The kid frowned. "Look at you, about to start a forest fire. You ever hear of a little thing called control. Read up about it will ya." And he turned right back to the river.

A fireball formed in the firebender's palm. "I'll show you control you little pipsqueak." He growled.

The boy spun around. "THE HELL YOU CALL ME?"

The captain growled. "What are you doing provoking him! Just grab him already!"

He looked at the soldiers, then at the forest, and then turned towards Azula. "Oi, did they do that to you?"

Azula frowned. "What's it to you?"

He didn't respond instead he just nodded his head. "Okay I've decided." He pointed at the soldiers. "I don't like you guys!"

They stared at him for a second. "You don't like us?" The captain repeated.

"Nope. Why the hell should I? You almost start a forest fire. You just told him to grab me. You're about to fight us ten vs. two- hold up."

He looked to the right then over at Azula who had to resist the urge to groan. _'This guy,'_ she decided _'is a simpleton.' _"There are only nine of them." _'Idiot.'_

The kid scratched his head. "Really?"

"Yes." She hissed. "Can't you count?"

"Yeah. There are these nine in front of us. Then there's the guy pointing an arrow at you in that tree. I don't he's on our side." He pointed to his left. Azula, surprised, tried to spot the archer. "And I just noticed the two across river dressed just like him." He pointed across the river. The captain flinched as if struck. "So actually it's twelve vs. one."

"One?" Azula questioned.

"Well you're in no condition to fight."

He had a point. And if this kid's detection abilities were anything to go by then he couldn't be too bad of a fighter. Perhaps she could use this boy. It wasn't like he was going to beat all the soldiers but he might be able to hold them off long enough for her to get away. "Yes you're right." Azula purred. "I suppose I'll have to leave my fate in your hands…"

"Naruto" He smiled. "Naruto Uzumaki." Naruto flashed her a thumbs up.

Azula inwardly smirked. _'Too easy.'_ Boys; just stroke their egos a bit and they'll do anything you want, which made Azula vaguely wonder why she couldn't get a boyfriend.

Naruto turned to the soldiers. "That fireball. That was firebending right?" He asked.

"No it was waterbending." A soldier sarcastically replied.

Naruto smirked. "Well I just to be happen to be a firebender as well." His fist burst into blood red flames. "Let's go wild."

The soldiers silently stared at his fire before the firebending soldiers burst into laughter much to the blonds' and the non-bending soldiers' confusion. "What's so funny?" a non-bender asked.

"He's a Rose Flame." A firebender laughed.

"A weakened deranged princess and a Rose Flame. This is almost too easy."

"A Rose Flame?"

"The strongest part of a fire is its center and the weakest is the edge. And as you move further from the center the color of the flames changes."

The non-bender still looked confused. "Yeah. So?"

The firebender sighed. "The colors of a fire from the center out goes white, then yellow, orange, and red as the outermost."

"Oh._ Oh_."

"Exactly."

Azula frowned as remembered the lessons on the different shades of flame.

Most firebenders started bending flames that were more orange than yellow that, as the bender grew better, changed to a healthy blend of orange and yellow. The sign of a master were flames with a stronger presence of yellow in them. Actually because of her blue flames Azula had been immediately been declared a master at the age of 12 before she mastered all of the necessary forms. There were few who could create blue fire but none besides herself who could actually use it in combat. The last person able to had been her grandfather, Fire Lord Azulon, in his younger years. White was the strongest and rarest of flames, but there hasn't been a firebender in well over 100 years who have been able to create those flames.

However there were some firebenders who started bending flames that had more red than anything. 'Affectionately' called 'Rose Flames', these firebenders were the jokes among other firebenders. To be a Rose Flame was the shame of a firebender, which caused a most of them to stop and hide their bending. There has never been a Rose Flame who has been declared a master, destined to have at best average orange-yellow flames.

'_So much for a decent distraction.'_ Azula thought bitterly.

"Save yourself some pain and just stand down Rose Flame." One soldier called.

Naruto rolled his shoulder. "Make me."

Wong motioned for one of the mounts holding a non-bender and a firebender to rush the teens. Then he had himself and the another follow after on their own mounts.

Watching the charging rhino Azula prepared to scare it with a blast of fire when Naruto jumped in her path. "Get out of the way you fool!"

He ignored her and reared his fist back… and punched the rhino. "_Hidō: Honoken (Way of Fire: Flame Fist)!__"_

Azula had realized what he was planning to do a split second before he did it. She was about to scream at the kid, which a part of her realized would be useless as he would be dead or critically injured, but stopped when his flaming fist collided with the beast's head and watched in shock as the beast was lifted off its feet, flew past the other two mounts, over the equally shocked foot soldiers' heads, and crashed into a boulder hard enough to turn it into a pile of rubble.

Everybody stared at the wreckage, eyes wide and jaws dropped. This kid, a Rose Flame, sent a +6,000 lb. rhino flying with a single punch.

"Do you know the main reason why I don't like you guys?" Naruto asked them in a low voice.

The soldiers gulped at the dark edge in his voice and shook their heads.

He pointed at one of the firebenders. "You."

"M-m-me?"

"You… You… YOU CALLED ME PIPSQUEAK!" He roared. "_Hidō: Faia Roketto (Way of Fire: Fire Rocket)!_" Naruto reared his hand back and punched forward. The soldier was slammed by a fireball hard enough to launch him back into the rubble.

Azula looked at the fallen firebender then at Naruto in a bit shock. _'Is this kid really a Rose Flame?'_

Naruto cracked his knuckles. "Warning. The next two minutes will feature the most violent and painful experience of your lives." He smirked darkly. "Viewer discretion is advised."

Pained screams echoed throughout the forest.

* * *

Minutes after the screams ended a group of soldiers, numbering around twenty, arrived at the riverbank led by a large man with a crescent shaped scar starting from under his right eye and going down to his cheek. He surveyed the burnt landscape littered with craters and unconscious soldiers with an angry scowl.

He climbed off his mount, marched up and kicked one of the fallen soldiers awake. "What happened here?" The man questioned.

"C-colonel Wong."

"The princess has on the run for six days. She's exhausted and weak. Against twelve men she didn't have a chance. Capturing her should have been child's play." Wong yanked the soldier up. "So tell me how the hell did you let her get away?" he yelled.

"She had help."

"Help? The Phoenix Alliance?"

"No. It was… a boy."

"A boy. As in One. Single. Child!"

"Yes. But this was no ordinary child. I never expected a kid to firebend like that, let alone a Rose Flame."

Wong froze. "Come again."

The soldier hesitated, realizing his slip up. "He's a," the soldier gulped "…Rose Flame."

"**WHAT!**"

* * *

Azula stared up at the twilight sky and huffed.

The boy, '_Naruto'_, she reminded herself, had been all grins after he demolished those soldiers but then briefly looked off to distance with a frown before rushing over, muttered something about twenty-one people on their way, then threw her on his back, and took off into the forest.

"Did you just huff? If anyone should be huffing it should be me. I'm the one carrying you." Naruto complained.

"I didn't ask you to carry me." Azula snapped. "And I certainly didn't ask you to carry me while flying through the treetops like a hog monkey." She looked down at the forest floor angrily with a hint of nervousness.

"…What the hell is a hog monkey?"

A deep voice chuckled. **"Hog monkey. Now there's a meal I haven't had in long time." **

Naruto frowned. '_Exactly how long ago, Kyuubi?'_

"**Are you trying to ask how far back you are ningen?" **Kyuubi asked sounding amused.

'_Well it would be nice to know what time period I'm in so I could, uh, what's the word, survive, baka-fox.'_ Naruto retorted.

The demon snarled. **"How the hell should I know? All I can say is that we're at least three hundred years back."**

'_Three hundred huh. Well I was expecting to be somewhere between fifty and one thousand years back.'_

Azula glared at him. "Bring us down."

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"Bring us down!"

"Why?"

"You weren't paying attention. I tree branch almost decapitated me."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "We're not moving fast enough for a tree branch to decapitate you. At worst you would been knocked unconscious and or knocked off my back."

"Down. Now." Azula growled. "I will not die because some little boy dropped me."

"Little boy!" Naruto exclaimed. "I just saved your ass back there. You should be calling me Naruto-dono or Naruto-sama."

"What does that mean? 'Dono' and 'Sama'?" Azula questioned.

Naruto raised an eyebrow then smirked. "Lord or master."

Azula set his shirt on fire.

Crying out, Naruto dropped to the forest floor and dumped Azula on the ground. "You lit me on fire! What the hell is your problem!" He asked while patting out the flames.

"I will not be spoken to like that, especially by a peasant."

"Peasant? Who do think you are? Queen of the-"

"Princess."

"What?"

"I'm Princess Azula of the Fire Nation. The rightful heir to the throne."

Naruto stared at her before walking away. "Well excuse me princess."

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm through dealing with your royal bitchiness. Go get one of your loyal subjects to help you."

Azula looked at the retreating boy. As annoying and disrespectful as this commoner was, he had his uses. _'He travels a lot faster than a Komodo Rhino does, that's for sure.'_ By chance the boy had headed off in the direction of Huangjin Huo, and at his pace she could make there before noon.

If that scene with the soldiers proved anything, it was that one; Naruto was strong and two; he wasn't easily intimidated. And if twelve soldiers didn't scare him then she doubted that she, in her current physical state, could. Azula frowned. Well if fear wouldn't work then there was one other road less traveled by her she could take.

"Fine!" Azula yelled. "Leave a defenseless girl in the forest by herself. With no one around for miles except for those guys who were chasing me." She sniffled making Naruto paused. "But I'm sure I'll be able to get away with my twisted ankle."

He turned to her looking up at him, her lips pursed. His eye started twitching. "…Devil thy name is woman."

Ah guilt, fear's little sister.

* * *

The pair made it to Golden Spark Town hours later, sometime before noon. Naruto, wanting to get this over with, had ran there at top speed, which was much faster than the previous speed he had been traveling at, much to Azula's surprise and irritation.

Wandering through town they ended up walking through the market which wasn't too busy. Naruto noticed people giving them strange looks. He didn't blame them. A cloaked person riding on the back of a smaller cloaked person wasn't a normal sight to see.

Naruto looked up from under the hood of his white cloak, which Azula forced him to wear. "So here's the deal hime-chan."

Azula glowered at him. Ever since she told him she was a princess he's gone between calling her that, telling her that hime meant princess and chan was an endearing term used for girls, and various mispronunciations of her name.

"I'm gonna drop you off at a clinic and then be on my merry way."

"No." Azula protested.

"Now what's your problem?" Naruto whined.

"I don't need to go to a clinic. All I require is food and a place to sleep."

Naruto eyed her skeptically. "Really? Because I thought I was carrying you because you twisted your ankle." He rolled his eyes and started speaking sarcastically. "But I guess I've been carrying you so I could feel your breasts up against my back and _almost_ touch your ass for the past four hours."

Azula locked her arms around his neck in a chokehold. "No asshole. You're carrying me because I'm weak from hunger and sleep deprivation." She tightened her hold on him.

"*gah* O-okay. Okay. You win. *gah* No clinic. *gah* Now let go. I can't *gah* breathe."

Azula held him for few more seconds before releasing him. "Good." She smirked. "I'm glad you could see it my way."

"Yeah whatever. You crazy bitch_. _Is a hotel alright?"

"And what, may I ask, is a hotel?"

Naruto's eyes widened a bit. "Oh, um, guess hotels don't exist yet." Azula rose an eyebrow at that, "There are inns right?"Azula nodded. "How about an inn?"

Azula hesitated before giving her consent.

'_They didn't have hotels three hundred years ago?' _

"**I said **_**at least**_** three hundred years moron. We can be much further back than that."**

'_How much further?' _

"**Dunno. Could be several hundred. Could be a couple thousand."**

Naruto stumbled. _'A couple thousand!' _"Hey what year is this?" He asked Azula.

Azula stared at him blankly. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Nope. What year is this?" He asked again.

"You have got to be- It's 15XX."

"Oh. Just five hundred years." He mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing."

* * *

Azula entered the room they were staying in, fresh from a bath, clad in a red rode and a towel wrapped around her head. Naruto turned to her, an excited look on his face. "Hey Alula-"

"-My name is Azula." Azula growled through clenched teeth. "And don't speak my name out loud."

Naruto briefly wondered why she would tell him her name only to tell him he's not allowed to say it before shaking his head. "Yeah whatever. Anyway you'll never believe what I saw. I swear I saw a bird with a dog's head!"

Azula just looked at Naruto before sighing. "It was just a parrot dog."

"You mean those things are common?" Naruto asked incredulously.

Azula limped to the window and shut the curtains. "Fetch me some ice before you go out for food." She sat down on one of the beds in the room. "And I know you can't get anything extravagant so I'll just have a plate of chicken-pork dumplings with lemon-mango juice."

'_Did she say chicken-pork?' _Naruto frowned. "Do I look like a waiter to you?"

Azula glared at him and gestured to her bandaged ankle. "Does it look like I can go out?"

Naruto returned her glare. "Well I said you should go to a clinic."

"I'm not going to a clinic!" Azula shouted fiercely, a wild look in her eyes that made Naruto flinch. Neither one of them spoke for a while.

"…How am I supposed to get food with no money?" Naruto asked breaking the silence.

"How should I know? Figure something out."

Naruto opened his mouth to yell at her but decided against it and walked out the room grumbling.

Smirking to herself Azula lied down and recalled the past hour.

She and Naruto had gone to an inn at a less populated part of the town. A slight problem arose when it came to paying for a room. As an escaped mental patient, Azula didn't have any money on her. And Naruto…

"_Yeah…I don't know what a silver piece is much less do I have five of them."_

That had earned him glares from both Azula and the innkeeper. Azula then began to threaten to burn the inn down before Naruto pulled her back and told her he'd handle it in a way that 'didn't make them the jackasses'. Azula scoffed but let him go ahead.

"_Please sir," He started. "Give us a room."_

That had Azula convinced that the boy was mentally retarded. But to her shock the innkeeper nodded, handed Naruto a key, and wished them a good stay. Bewildered, Azula had questioned him on what he did. All Naruto said was he has a 'look'. Azula frowned as she remembered the innkeeper's eyes; they looked dull, almost lifeless.

Naruto reentered the room, a bag of ice in his hand. "Here." He set the ice on her ankle. "You said dumplings?"

"And lemon-mango juice."

His eye twitched. "Right away, hime-chan." He mock bowed then exited the room.

Azula glared at the door. Dear Agni the boy was infuriating. But for the time being he was of use to her. At least until she could make contact with the Phoenix Alliance. After that the boy's very existence would become a liability and all liabilities were to be terminated. Azula supposed she could have Naruto join the Phoenix Alliance, he certainly was strong enough of a fighter, even with his status of a Rose Flame, but that disrespectful attitude of his was not something she could have in her army, lest it spread to the other soldiers. Azula smirked to herself. Besides, Uzumaki on his knees begging for his life was something she wanted to experience.

* * *

The inn had stopped serving breakfast and it was still too early for lunch so that left Naruto to go out into the city in search of food. Naruto frowned as he noticed that everyone here looked alike; dark hair, gold eyes, pale skin, and red clothing.

'_I'm glad I used a henge.' _Naruto thought as he looked at himself from a window reflection. Short brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, and no whiskers or tattoos, Naruto felt he could pass for an average Fire Nation kid. Naruto ran his hand through his hair and chuckled. Good old _Henge no jutsu._

'_I need food, and to get said food I need money. I have plenty of Ryo notes but in this time money is a bunch of coins so I'm basically broke. But this isn't first time I've been on the road, broke and hungry. I know several ways to get cash fast.'_ Hearing a lot of noise Naruto looked to his left and spotted the source, a busy street. His curiosity piqued, Naruto walked down. Looking around Naruto spotted people playing a game of cards. Further down where another group of people shooting dice, another group was pitching coins, and all around were other various gambling games going on. Naruto smiled and walked over to the card game.

A couple of the players, a man with a small mustache and a husky man, noticed him and smirked at each other, thinking easy prey. "Hey kid. Want to play?" the mustached man called.

Naruto shrugged and sat down. "I don't have any money." The men frowned. "But," Naruto reached into his shirt and pulled out a string necklace adorned with a green jewel. "I have this. I've been told it's worth a ton of money."

"A ton huh." The mustached man examined the jewel. "All right." He dealt out five cards to each player. Naruto picked up his hand and frowned.

"What are these supposed to be?" Naruto asked gesturing to the wooden squares in his hand.

The husky man snorted. "What do mean 'what are these supposed to be?' They're cards."

Naruto frowned. Of course the cards here were different too. But it didn't really matter, Naruto was someone who won more because of luck than skill. He looked at his hand, on the face of four of his cards were three swirls and on each one in the upper-right corner was a different symbol; those same three swirls, a circle with what looked like waves inside it, a weird trapezoid symbol, and a symbol that looked like a flame. Naruto looked at his fifth card, the flame symbol with a small wave symbol in the corner.

"Call." 'Mustache' said with a smirk. He laid down three fire cards topped with water symbols. "Three wet flames." The others groaned and threw their cards down.

Naruto sweat dropped. _'Wet flames?'_.

'Mustache' chuckled and reached for the pot. "Hey does this get me anything?" Naruto asked showing his hand to everyone.

'Mustache' blanched. "An air cycle!"

Naruto sweat dropped further. _'Air cycle? Seriously?' _"So I win?" The men nodded numbly. "Sweet." He gathered the money in.

The husky man growled. "You just got lucky kid."

"Yep. I'm not denying that."

"Yeah just wait. We'll get you in the next hand."

* * *

Two hours later Naruto walked out the street whistling happily while carrying an armful of bags of money.

Behind him in the street were the broke card players, dice rollers, coin shooters, coin spinners, and other gamblers Naruto had cleaned out, many of them crying over their losses.

'_And the 'The Legendary Cleaner' strikes again.'_The false brunette soon found himself seated at a small open air restaurant waiting to be served.

* * *

A growl rumbled in his head. **"Damn it boy."**

Naruto frowned. _'What's your problem?'_

"**My problem is that you're here playing servant to that girl."**

'_Girl? …Oh! Ally! Or Lula. …Hime-chan? Whatever her name is. Hmm, I totally forgot about her.' _

Kyuubi was silent for a moment before sighing. **"Why doesn't that surprise me. So then why are you here when you have food sealed in those scrolls."**

'_What my emergency ramen? As in ramen for e-mer-gen-cies! I'm not wasting what little ramen I have stored away when there's a perfectly good town where I could get ramen from.' _

Kyuubi snorted.

"So what can I get you kid?" A male voice asked.

Naruto jumped then looked up at a waiter. Naruto frowned, he must have really zoned out in his talk with Kyuubi for this guy to sneak up on him. "Well I haven't eaten since yesterday so I'll have two large bowls of every kind of ramen you have, except vegetable, a glass of water and… what did she want again? Oh! A plate of 'chicken-pork' dumplings and a glass of lemon-mango juice to go."

The waiter nodded and walked away.

Kyuubi scoffed. **"Look at you, whipped. I say instead of bothering with that annoying girl you kill her and be on your way."**

'_I'm not whipped! And why do you always say I have to kill something? Wouldn't it just be easier to just ditch her?'_

"**Yeah, probably, but it wouldn't be as fun as killing her."**

Naruto rolled his eyes. _'I'm ignoring you now.' _

The waiter came back frowning. "Um, we don't have ramen here."

Naruto whined. "You don't?"

"No. Actually the cook doesn't know what ramen is."

Naruto paled. "He doesn't know what ramen is?"

The waiter nodded.

"Do you?"

The waiter shook his head.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…Would you like to order something else?"

* * *

"RAAAAAMEEEEEEEN-CHAAAAAAAN!"

All around town and in the surrounding forests birds flew away, wild animals ran off, pets whimpered, and people paused, looking up and around for the source of the pained wail.

* * *

Azula's eyes flew open having just been sleeping. She shot up and looked around the room and frowned. _'Uzumaki'. _What the hell was that idiot doing? Sighing, Azula turned back to go to sleep and paused. Something was tapping on the window. Her frown deepening, Azula got up and crept to the window. Preparing for a quick fire blast Azula slightly pulled the curtains back and peeked out. Sitting outside on the windowsill was a messenger hawk. Narrowing her eyes, Azula, without letting herself be seen, quickly opened the window, snatched the bird, and shut the window back.

Azula opened the letter and was surprised to see it was from the Phoenix Alliance. How they knew she was in town, let alone what inn and room she was staying at disturbed her a bit, but it at least proved they were a competent organization. Azula went over the rest of the letter. They wanted to meet up tonight at warehouse #6, wherever that was. That was fine with her, the sooner the better. Azula looked at the signature at the bottom. General Shao Zu.

It wasn't much of a surprise that Shao Zu was one of the leaders of the Phoenix Alliance. Shao Zu was a man who thrived and grew successful during the war especially during her father's reign. Like a lot of high ranking officers he was proud and arrogant, though he was more ambitious than most, more than she cared for, he was loyal to the war effort and her father.

The door opened and a brown haired boy sullenly shuffled in holding a box.

Azula promptly slid into a bending stance. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Bringing you your food hime-chan." He tossed her the box.

She caught it, blinking. "Uzumaki?"

Naruto grunted and plopped face first on the bed.

Azula stood staring at the former annoying cheery blue-eyed yellow haired boy now a sulking gold-eyed brunette. "What happened to you?"

"What happened? I'll tell you what happened or rather what hasn't happened yet." Naruto sat up and looked at her, tears streaming down his face. "Ramen hasn't been invented yet!" he cried.

Azula's eye twitched as she watched him plop on the bed again. "That's not what I meant. What I want to know is-"

Naruto sprang back up no longer crying with an intense look in his eyes. "What? What's ramen? Why it's only the greatest dish to be ever invented! All other foods pale in comparison! A gift from the gods I tell you! A gift from the gods!"

"…Right. Actually what I wanted to know is how it that you've changed your appearance so drastically."

Eyes widening a bit, Naruto ran a hand through his hair finding it to still be short and straight. "Whoops." He was engulfed in smoke for a moment before it cleared and revealed Naruto back to normal. "Sorry about that."

Azula's eyes bulged and jaw dropped. "H-how did you that?"

"It was just a henge." Naruto said like it was nothing special.

"Henge?" Azula repeated.

Naruto looked at her skeptically. "Don't tell me you've never heard of the _henge no jutsu_ before?"

Azula crossed her arms. "I can't say that I have."

Naruto frowned. "I thought royalty and nobility were taught a little bit about how to recognize and defend against some low level jutsu when they were young in case of assassination or abduction." Naruto mentally rolled his eyes. _'As if a child of nobility can do anything against a ninja skilled enough to even be tasked to go after a noble.' "_And yet you don't even know about one of the basic three jutsu all shinobi know."

"What are jutsu and who are these shinobi you speak of?" Azula asked interested in something that could lead to the murder of a certain brother of hers.

This time it was Naruto whose jaw dropped. "You don't know what a shinobi is? You bend blue fire so you can't be one of those sheltered 'spends my day in the garden while having tea' princesses, hell even if you were one, you should have at least heard about them." He frowned. "Is it really 15XX, because if it is ninja should have been around for a few hundred years by now."

Kyuubi snorted. **"They've been around longer than that."**

'_Well then why doesn't a princess know about ninja?' _Naruto complained to the fox demon.

"**Do you not know your own species' history gaki? You shinobi weren't always the large, publically recognized force of power that you are in modern times. This is the era where you ninja really were warriors from the shadows, known at best as an urban myth."**

Ninja an urban myth? What the hell is up with this stupid time period.

Azula made a face. "What do _ninja_ have to do with shinobi?"

Naruto blinked. "Why did you look like you smelled something bad when said ninja?"

"What, those cowards who strike from the shadows but don't fight face to face because they lack the skill and power to do so." Azula shrugged. "I have nothing against them though. Admittedly they do have their uses."

"Cowards from the shadows." Naruto chuckled humorlessly. "A few things. One; I'm a ninja. Two; I just saved your life last night by kicking those firebenders' ass 'face to face', something you couldn't do." Azula glared at him. "And three; How the hell do you know what a ninja is but don't know what a shinobi is?"

"What, are they related to each other?"

"They're the same thing." Naruto said like it was obvious. "Ninja is just a translation for the word shinobi."

Azula shook her head. "Whatever."

Naruto's eye twitched. "Stupid annoying princess."

Azula turned to him. "What did you say?"

Naruto looked away. "Nothing." He looked back at her, a more serious expression on his face. "So what's the deal? Why doesn't hime-chan want to be seen?"

Azula narrowed her eyes before schooling her face to look innocent at him. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm not as stupid as I look, and I'm anything but blind. You had us wear cloaks into town which means you thought there was a chance we would be recognized. You're hurt but you refuse to go to a doctor, which is something I doubt you do normally. And when we were looking for a place to stay at you weren't looking at the quality of the inn, you looking at the number of people in the area and the positions of the other buildings, making sure they weren't too close to or taller than the inn." At the princess' slightly widened eyes and clenched fists Naruto smirked.

Azula frowned. So wasn't just a slightly strong idiot, it turns out he's a slightly strong, not so idiotic ninja. Azula took a deep breath, visibly relaxing, and decided to relent some information. "The cloaks weren't for being recognized now but rather for being recognized later when those soldiers come with our descriptions."

Naruto looked at her in shock. "Soldiers? Those guys were soldiers?"

If she had any less self-control Azula would have face faulted. "Their uniform weren't a clue that they were soldiers?" She deadpanned.

"Yeah well I'm not from around here."

"When you say around here do you mean the Fire Nation? Because all the soldiers in the Fire Nation wear that uniform." She glared at him suspiciously.

Naruto just shrugged.

"So then where's a _firebender_ like you from, the Earth Kingdom?" Azula asked mockingly.

Naruto crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling. "Well I was told not to tell anybody before I got here but," He looked at her with squinted eyes before smiled. "If I want you to trust me then I should trust you."

Trust. Azula scoffed. '_Yeah right. A foolish concept never to be used again.'_ She thought bitterly.

"Well believe it or not, I'm from the future."

Azula was silent for a minute before responding. "You're from the future?" She repeated slowly, disbelief in her voice.

"Five hundred years in the future to be exact." He lifted five fingers for effect.

"Riiiight." Azula looked at Naruto incredulously. It didn't look like he was lying and Azula refused to believe that her ability to read people had diminished. That meant he really believed he was from the future. _'Looks like I'm not the only one who escaped from the mental institution. Though unlike this guy, I was never insane.'_

Naruto nodded to himself. "There. I've told you something about myself I wasn't supposed to tell anybody." He gestured to Azula. "Now it's your turn; why are soldiers hunting down their own princess?"

Azula snorted. "And why would a kid who just met me last night and claims he's from 'the future' care?"

"You're right I shouldn't care. Ever since we met you've been nothing but mean, rude, and bossy," Naruto shrugged. "But I have friends who treat me worst than you have, and that's what I consider you hime-chan; a friend. And when my friends are in trouble I don't turn my back on them. So tell what's going on so I can help you!"

Azula looked at him for a moment before sighing. "The Fire Nation had been at war with the other nations for the past one hundred years and we were winning."

Naruto's eyes widened a bit at that, impressed, but didn't say anything.

"Under the leadership of the previous Fire Lord, my father, Fire Lord Ozai, the Fire Nation was at the height of our power, victory was assured." Azula's tone darkened. "But two months ago, on the day we were going to achieve total victory over the war Zuko, my older brother and traitor to our nation, challenged me during my coronation to Fire Lord for the crown. We dueled and I defeated him. Zuzu has always been weaker than me. But then he cheated and sicced that filthy water witch on me. They locked me in chains and shipped me off to a mental institution."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Mental institution? Wow, I've never heard that in a coup d'état story before."

"He sent me there to discredit anything I would say." At Naruto's puzzled expression Azula sighed. "When it's your word vs. his over how he won the throne unjustly and you're considered to be insane, people tend to believe him over you." Azula explained bitterly.

A look of realization hit Naruto's face. "Oh." Then he frowned. "But why did he keep you alive and run the risk of someone believing you instead of silencing you forever by killing you."

"Most likely to mock me by having me spend the rest of my life locked in that awful place all the while knowing that he now holds the throne. But its Zuzu's mistake for not finishing me back then because the opportunity to do so will never come again." She smirked evilly. "He'll rue the day he opposed me! I'll hunt down and destroy everybody and everything he-"

"There are a couple of things about your story that are bugging me." Naruto spoke, stopping Azula mid-rant.

Azula glared at him. She didn't like to be interrupted during a tirade.

"You said_ older_ brother. Wouldn't he be the heir to the throne anyway?"

"I also said traitor to our nation!" Azula snapped at him. "He left and joined up with the Avatar. And once he stole my throne Zuko went and surrendered to the other nations"

Naruto tilted his head in confusion. "…What does joining the Avatar have to do with your brother betraying your country?"

For the sixth time that day Azula was convinced Naruto was mentally ill. "The Avatar is the Fire Nation's greatest enemy. He has been since the last Avatar betrayed my great-grandfather Fire Lord Sozin over one hundred years ago."

"Is that right?" Naruto said anger in his voice. _'Oh great. A corrupt Avatar, that's just what I need. And she said the last Avatar too. Poor people, it's been bad one right after the other.'_ Naruto fell back on the bed.

"If I'm to get my throne back then I'll also have to face the Avatar. Not too long ago that was something I would have looked forward to, but after what he did to father, I'm now hesitant to do so."

"What did he do?" Naruto asked.

If it wasn't for his heightened hearing Naruto would have missed Azula's quiet reply. "He took my father's bending away."

Naruto whistled. "Wow."

"My father used to be the most powerful firebender, literally the most powerful man in the world." Azula closed her eyes, her clenched fists trembling. "And now he's locked up in a prison cell literally powerless. I can't let that happen to me too."

"So don't." Naruto said.

Azula looked at him.

"Just worry about getting your throne back from your brother. If this Avatar dude does come around I'll kick his ass, dattebayo!" Naruto declared.

'_Sure you will. And I'll suddenly grow a third arm.' _Azula started pacing in front of Naruto. "The first step to get take down my brother down is to join up with the resistance. We're supposed to meet in town tonight at a place called Warehouse #6." Azula paused. "Is there a warehouse district in this town?"

Naruto blinked. "Uh, yeah, on the north side of town. At least I think that's what it was."

Azula nodded to herself. "Then I'll start there."

"Count me in. But I have one more question." Naruto pointed to his right. "Has that bird always been here?"

The teens stared at the messenger hawk who stared back before it squawked at them.

* * *

Night came and the cloaked duo made their way to the meeting place.

Naruto started to get a sense of foreboding as soon as they entered the warehouse district. "Something bad is about to happen."

Azula glanced at him before focusing back ahead. "What makes you say that?"

"I have the ability to detect incoming threats and dangers." Naruto explained.

"Is that right?" Azula said, not believing the boy.

"Yeah. It's just one of the abilities of my kekkei genkai."

"Uh huh." Azula didn't know what a kekkei genkai was and frankly, she didn't care. She was more focused on finding Warehouse #6.

Warehouse #4. Warehouse #5. Azula smirked. There it was. Warehouse #6.

Azula looked around to make sure no one was around before entering the warehouse.

Naruto followed in after her, his eyes narrowing. He was still sensing danger and now he could feel that there were other people in the building but he didn't have his kekkei genkai fully active so he couldn't tell how many there were exactly, but he estimated that there were at least ten other people here.

Azula looked around the warehouse; it was quiet, dark, and seemingly empty, a combination that made Azula feel apprehensive. "Uzumaki, light." Azula called.

"Is there something wrong with your bending?" Was Naruto's response.

Azula growled at Naruto.

"It's surprising to hear such insolence from a subordinate of yours, Princess Azula. I hope this doesn't mean you've lost your edge." A voice spoke from the darkness. Around the room torches were lit, bathing the room in orange light and exposing several dozen men in Fire Nation armor, one of whom was confidently walking towards them. An older man, his armor was different, fancier looking, than the others and unlike the other soldiers the man wasn't wearing a helmet or mask, allowing the small smirk on his face to be seen.

Azula narrowed her eyes. "General Shao Zu. I see you haven't lost your talent for telling jokes when they're not appreciated."

Shao Zu's smirk faded and he quickly bowed. "My apologies princess. It's a nervous habit of mine."

"Well do try to control yourself general. I no longer have patience for such behavior."

"Of course." Shao Zu straightened up. "It's good to see that you were able to make it here, Your Highness. I had heard what had happened to your escort and was afraid that you too would soon be captured."

"That almost happened. If it wasn't for this boy here my brother's soldiers would have me in their custody right now." Azula frowned. "I find it a bit discomforting that a child was able to accomplish something several men of the Phoenix Alliance couldn't."

"Hey don't be like that." Naruto interjected. "I'm sure they don't suck, I'm just awesome that's all." Shao Zu pinned Naruto with a glare.

Azula started studying her nails. "Maybe this isn't the right group for me; there are other resistance factions out there. The Heart of Fire sounds like they're a competent group."

Shao Zu fell to his knees and bowed before Azula. "I assure you Princess there is no one more capable of winning the Fire Nation back from your brother than us."

Azula looked around at the gathered men. "I need an army that's decisive, efficient, ruthless, cold-blooded."

Naruto frowned. _'Ruthless and cold-blooded?_'

Kyuubi hummed in his cage. **"Maybe this girl isn't so bad after all."**

Hearing the fox demon say that gave Naruto a bad feeling.

"We are all of those." Shao Zu insisted.

Azula looked the general straight in the eye. "Prove it."

"How?"

Azula pointed at Naruto. "Kill him."

* * *

**And that's chapter one, ending it off with a cliffhanger.**

**So what do you think? Completely different from the first version right? **

**Don't expect the next chapter to be this long, this chapter was a lot longer than I wanted it to be.**

**Yes, bending attacks will have names. I wanted attack names for bending techniques and they're gonna have them. I needed something to distinguish between jutsu and bending so instead of katon or fuuton I came up with hidō (way of fire). The inspiration behind the word hidō actually came from the terms kidō (way of destruction) and bakudō (way of binding) from Bleach. I honestly just came up with it right before I finished the chapter.**

**Now I don't like god like stories and Naruto isn't going to be god like, but he will seem that way at some points story, especially in the beginning, along with other ninja characters, and that's only because I believe ninjas from Naruto are so much stronger than benders. Now some of you may disagree but I think it could be justified. Imagine if some ninja had, along with their jutsu, the ability to bend. They would be So. Bad. Ass. Well in this story ninja can bend and they are badass, compared to Avatar benders. Though I may be making ninja more awesome than they really are. **

**Yes, I gave Naruto a kekkei genkai, but like I said Naruto's not going to be god like, as it is it won't make Naruto too strong. It's one of my own creation and I'll say this, he inherited from one of his parents, it's not from the Namikaze or Uzumaki clan, and Minato and Kushina are still his birth parents. That's all I'm saying, I've already given out **_**three**_** of its abilities away in this chapter.**

**And a proud moment for me; I actually predicted a kekkei genkai in Naruto, Shakuton (Scorch Element) about 10 chapters before it came out, although I thought it would be called Heat Element. But not only did I correctly predict what it does; I correctly predicted **_**what village**__**it came from**_**! How freakin' awesome is that! **


	2. The Crimson Avatar

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender**

**This chapter is way longer than I wanted it to be. The last chapter was also longer than I wanted it to be. I'm trying to aim for 6000 to 7000 word chapters but so far that hasn't been happening. So think of this like a double chapter in one. **

**I found out Hidō can also translate to Fire Art and that sounds way better than Way of Fire, I'm sure you'll agree, so I'm changing it to that.**

**This is just after the Sasuke Retrieval Arc so Naruto is 13 and Azula is 15. **

**Sithrein: Thank you for that suggestion because I really was just going to have Naruto randomly learn a new language.**

"Speech"

'_Thoughts'_

"**Demon/Spirit/Summon speech"**

"_Jutsu/Bending_"

* * *

The Crimson Avatar

Naruto laughed a bit awkwardly and elbowed a nearby soldier. "You hear that? She said 'kill me'. And I thought she didn't have a sense of humor, though it's a bit twisted."

Azula grinned a little but didn't say anything. She turned her back on him and walked away, motioning for the soldiers to move forward.

"You're serious." Naruto muttered in disbelief before frowning. "What the hell? I saved your life!"

Azula focused on one of her bangs and started twisting it. "Yes you did, but you're just so irritating. Plus now that they're here you're no longer of use." Her expression hardened as she let go of her hair and focused on Naruto. "And useless things are to be disposed of."

In his cage Kyuubi nodded. **"I can't argue with that reasoning, but still, you better take princess down."**

Naruto glared at her. She just called him a useless thing. He had a sudden flashback of his childhood back when the villagers were still pretty hostile to him, useless thing was one of the more hurtful things they've called him.

"Are you certain you want this done Princess? I mean, as you said he was able to do something several my men couldn't?" Shao Zu asked Azula.

"I think that says more about your men than him." Azula remarked, causing Shao Zu glare at the back of her head. "He's a child that doesn't fully realize what he's getting into. He doesn't have the stomach for what we'll do and eventually he'll turn traitor. It's too big of a risk to keep him around any longer."

Taking a deep breath, Naruto calmed himself and looked around the warehouse. There were forty-two in total. He closed his eyes and felt energy lingering around most of the men. '_Almost all of them are firebenders!' _His eyes snapped open. _'I've never seen so many of the same type of benders gathered in one place before.'_ "Aw man." Naruto groaned out loud as he looked at the men slowly moving to surround him. "How do I always end up in these situations?"

Naruto put his hands up in front of him and smiled nervously. "Hey now, can't we talk about this first?"

The soldiers didn't respond and instead slid into firebending stances.

Naruto shuddered, those helmets are thought with a grimace. As much as Naruto wanted to punch out the Fire Nation princess he decided that now was better time to initiate tactical retreat #2.

"Well good luck trying to kill me because you're gonna have to find the real me first." Naruto formed a cross shaped hand seal. "_Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique)!_" The firebenders watched in shock as dozens of the blond appeared in bursts of smoke and filled the room. "And I'm not gonna make that easy for you!" They all yelled.

The soldiers looked around wildly.

"What in the world?"

"Look at all of them! There's got to be at least hundred of 'em!"

"What the hell is this?"

Azula eyed the crowd of Narutos. There was no way all of these were real, it must be some kind of illusion. But then again, the idea that this was an illusion wasn't a much more believable theory. Still there had to be some way to tell the real one from the fakes.

One of the Narutos in the middle raised his arm in the air. "Yosh!" He shouted. The others raised their arms and echoed the battle cry.

Ignoring the others, Azula focused on the one who first cried out. '_I can't believe he gave away his position, he's such an idiot.'_ Azula thought to herself as she fired a bolt of fire at his chest. She allowed herself a smirk when she saw that he was blasted back meaning it was a real body she hit. The smirk dropped however when he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Naruto smirked at the surprised looks on the princess's and general's (and he assumed also on the soldiers') faces. "Now let's get the hell out of here!" The clones surged forward; some rushed the soldiers while others flew above them, jumping off the walls and rafters. The firebending soldiers started blasting fireballs at the rushing clones, dispelling some, but there were just too many. The sheer number of clones overwhelmed them and the clones were able to charge through, mowing the soldiers down. Azula raised a large wall of fire to block the exit but Naruto and his clones were easily able to bend their way through it.

Several of the leading Narutos placed one palm above the other and started rotating it, balls of swirling blue chakra forming. When they reached the size of small balloons they thrust them at the wall. "_Rasengan!_" Most of the wall was destroyed and the blonds poured out of giant hole. A small part of Naruto figured he could have used the door but this was faster and he felt a bit of satisfaction destroying part of their base.

Azula watched angrily as the clones scattered into town. A bit out of breathe, Azula wiped her forehead and frowned at the sweat on her hand. Creating that firewall had taken more energy than it should have.

"After him!" Shao Zu ordered.

"No." Azula spoke. "We won't be able to find him, especially without creating attention to ourselves."

"That's not a problem; I'll just have the local police search for the boy under the pretense that he's a criminal." At Azula's questioning look Shao Zu elaborated. "I'm officially in charge of Huangjin Huo. To your brother I'm a loyal general, using this town as a base to willingly handle the rebel situation in this area, which I do, I take in the rebels whose goals are the same as mine own and destroy the ones who aren't."

"I see." Azula said.

"I'll have the boy brought before you by sundown tomorrow." Shao Zu bowed.

Azula gazed back at the town. "Doubtful."

Shao Zu looked up. "What?"

"As you just saw, General, that boy has strange powers. One of those powers includes the ability to alter his appearance at will."

"Alter his appearance?" The general repeated in a bewildered tone. "You mean like a costume?"

Azula shook her head. "No. It's nothing like a costume."

* * *

"_Henge no Jutsu__, the transformation technique." Naruto started to explain. "It's one of the three basic ninjutsu, ninja techniques, almost all ninja know. It allows a person to transform into anyone or anything."_

"_Anything?" Azula sounded skeptical._

"_Anything. Watch." Naruto created the ram seal. "Henge." Naruto was enveloped in smoke that cleared and revealed… another Azula. _

_Azula's eyes widened slightly as she looked at the smirking copy. She slowly circled him, examining the technique for any flaws. "You look just like me." She poked and touched him. "You've physically changed your appearance."_

_Naruto shrugged. "Just my outer appearance."_

"_You even sound like me."_

_Naruto smiled, which looked out of place on her face. "That's right, and I'm not just limited to people." A puff of smoke and he was now a cat. He meowed and was enveloped in another puff of smoke. This time he was rock before he transformed back to himself, grinning. "I even created my own version of the technique." Engulfed in smoke once again, it cleared to reveal an older naked female version of Naruto with long blond hair tied in pigtails, large chest, and clouds of smoke covering her private parts. _

_Azula felt her eye twitch and face heat up. _

"_Oiroke no Jutsu__, my Sexy Jutsu! Pretty impressive, am I right?" (S)he winked at Azula._

_A couple walking in the hall jumped at the pained yell that came from behind the door that had a blue light emanating from it. They looked at each other before hurrying away. _

_Azula glared down at Naruto's twitching burnt form. She didn't know why that technique made her so upset but unloading on him like that made her feel much better than she's felt since she met him. "Do not perform that scandalous technique in my presence ever again."_

"_Y-you got it." (S)he said weakly. '_I've got to stop using this technique in front of women.' _He undid the technique and stood up without any visible injury. "So besides Oiroke, what do you think?" There was a part of him that loved showing off and looking cool._

"_It's intriguing." Azula admitted. "But explain to me how it works."_

_Naruto yawned. "With chakra."_

"_I don't believe I'm familiar with that term."_

_Naruto lay back on the bed. "Chakra is the energy source for all jutsu."_

"_I kind of got that. I want to know what chakra actually is."_

"_Zzz."_

_Azula's eye twitched. "He did not just fall asleep on me." She walked over and tapped him. "Hey."_

_Naruto groaned and rolled over._

_Azula frowned and shook him. "You haven't told me what chakra is yet."_

_Naruto slapped her hands off him, "It's a mixture of physical energy and spiritual energy that all living things have." He mumbled before he hid under his pillow and resumed snoring._

_Azula let Naruto sleep, getting what she felt was a sufficient answer. Besides she realized that since she met him he's fought off soldiers, ran a two day journey in just seven hours almost nonstop while carrying her, and spent the rest of his day searching around town for an inn and food, and he hasn't slept once. He's earned his sleep. _

_Sitting on the other bed, Azula went over what Naruto said. Chakra is a mixture of physical and spiritual energy. She had thought chakra was just another name for chi but chi sounded more like spiritual energy and she had no idea what physical energy was. And how did one mix these energies? _

_Azula yawned. It would take some time and research but she could figure all this out later. She was tired and she was meeting with the Phoenix Alliance in a few hours and the future ruler of the Fire Nation can't lead her army with bags under her eyes._

* * *

In hindsight Azula should of asked more about chakra and jutsu but both were just so outrageous that she just passed it off as a dream and put it at the back of her mind. And then when he performed that clone technique Azula half thought she was going crazy and hallucinating again, but seeing others were witnessing what she was had, thankfully, destroyed that line of thought. But still; what in the world was he?

She had seriously underestimated the capabilities of these jutsu and had no idea what they were limited to do. The ability to instantly change your appearance so thoroughly was remarkable enough, but the ability to make copies of yourself was nothing short of mind-blowing. The idea of an army of herself sent shivers up the princess' spine.

"But if you do find him bring him back alive. It seems he is still of some use to me after all." She would squeeze out everything he knew about jutsu before ending his life.

* * *

As soon as he had reached the main part of town Naruto had jumped into an empty alley and transformed into a young brown haired, gold eyed, red dress wearing sighed to himself as he walked down the street. '_That was close. I haven't had so many benders after me since that whole thing in Tsuchi no Kuni a couple years ago.'_ Naruto twitched as several clones dispelled themselves.

"**Why in hell's name didn't you finish off those weaklings?"** Kyuubi growled.

Naruto scoffed. _'Are you serious? There were like forty firebenders back there, what the hell was I supposed to do? Have them turn me into fried fishcake.' _Naruto cringed._ 'I didn't mean that! My name means maelstrom, dammit! Not fishcake!'_

Kyuubi snorted. **"Pathetic flesh bag."**

'_Oh bite me.'_

"**Gladly, just say when."**

Naruto rolled his eyes and cut the connection. He needed to focus on the problem at hand which was finding that pervert he called master. He also wanted to know more about the world in this era, something he had hoped the Fire Nation Princess would be able to help him with but that obviously wasn't going to happen so he was going to have to find another source of information. But not now. He was tired and he just realized he hasn't eaten all day.

Reaching into his pockets, Naruto smiled when he felt a key. He was so glad he hadn't checked out of the inn earlier; it would be the last place Azula would expect him to be. Deciding to figure something out tomorrow Naruto headed to the inn for an overdue meal and much deserved sleep.

* * *

Zuko sat at the dining room table staring intently at the report in his hands, his breakfast lay forgotten in front of him. According to the report Azula was last sighted outside a port city located southwest of the Great Gates of Azulon; it was believed that Azula was headed towards the capitol. Zuko frowned, something about that didn't sound right.

"I take it from your frown that it's not good news."

Zuko looked up from the scroll at the bun haired girl sitting next to him, seemingly staring at him dispassionately, but Zuko knew his girlfriend well enough to see that she was actually interested and concerned. "She was spotted again. This time outside the port city Hunan."

Mai frowned a little. "Hunan? She's getting closer."

"Yeah. But I don't think her destination is here. At least not yet, that wouldn't make any sense."

Mai raised a delicate eyebrow. "It wouldn't make any sense that the girl who wants to kill you and take the crown would come to the royal palace where you live?"

Zuko shook his head. "No, I meant I don't think Azula's coming straight here. She's alone, for her to try to get to me with all the palace guards and the soldiers stationed around city would be crazy."

"Well look at who you're talking about."

Zuko gave her a flat look. "Azula may be crazy, but she's not stupid."

"I know, but it's not her intelligence that's in question, it's her sanity. Didn't Azula banish most of the palace guard for 'not reacting fast enough' to her commands?"

"…Okay you've got a point. But still…"

Zuko looked back at the report.

Zuko had been furious when he first received the news that Azula had escaped, he had almost accidently burned down the throne room (Which actually worked out for him since Zuko couldn't decide before whether or not to remodel the throne room to look less intimidating).

At the advice of his counselors Zuko had this incident kept as quiet as possible. The people of the Fire Nation didn't need to know that the 'crazed Princess Azula' was loose, that might cause a panic that political enemies may take advantage or, worse, some might bold enough to try and get in contact with his sister. There was also the fact that the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes considered Azula one of the biggest criminals of the war and if they found out she escaped the fragile trust the other nations held for the Fire Nation could be shattered.

Another thing to be irritated about was that there was still no real information about the people who broke his sister out. It was hard to believe that Azula had planned any of this seeing how she hasn't had any contact with the outside world since she was put in there so Zuko was putting most of blame on these people, but that didn't mean Azula was completely innocent in all of this. Questioning the mental facility staff didn't get him anywhere; eyewitnesses there said the men who broke Azula out were wearing non-descriptive masks. When engaged the assailants were all either killed or committed suicide before they could be captured.

There were a lot of rebel factions in the Fire Nation, a fact that the young Fire Lord hated, but they were mostly active in the colonies and the outer islands. Azula and these people were clearly headed deeper into the Fire Nation where there wasn't much rebel activity, so where she headed?

Colonel Wong, the man who decided on his own to chase after Azula, believed that she was working with the Phoenix Alliance, one of the more notorious groups, but they were more known for working in northern part of the nation. And all rebel activity in the area Azula was currently in was being swiftly taken care of by General Shao Zu. Something about all of this just wasn't adding up.

* * *

Azula stood overlooking Huangjin Huo in front of one of the third story windows of town hall. After last night's events the general had invited her to stay at his estate, which also happened to be town hall. She was given a room with a full sized bed with satin sheets, a desk with writing materials present, a drawer, and a larger than average closet. She was also provided fresh clothing; a dull red long sleeved shirt under a dark red gold trimmed leather vest, dark red bracers, a pair of grey pants, and black boots. It wasn't the extravagant things she was used to when at the Fire Nation palace, but after months of being locked away in that small dingy hospital room wearing those rags and spending the last several days out in the wilderness, a change of clothes and quarters as lavish this was pleasant, luxury was the environment Azula was most comfortable with, even more than a war zone. Yes, she was that much closer to returning to the lifestyle she was supposed to be living. The princess smiled to herself.

"_And what, pray tell, are you smiling about?"_

Azula went rigid, her eyes wide. Not daring to move an inch she looked at the window. There in the reflection was her father dressed in his Fire Lord robes giving her a stern look. Azula turned her head back and glanced at the hallway. There was no one there. She looked back at the window, back at the image of her father, who was now sneering at her.

"_You're pleased to be sleeping in quarters such as this?" _Ozai snorted._ "You've fallen farther than I thought."_

Azula flinched at his words. She shook her head. "No. Shut up. You're wrong, you're not even real. I haven't fallen anywhere."

"_Haven't you?" _Ozai asked her. "_You used be the heir of the throne to the most powerful nation in the world; a life consisting of living in a palace, enjoying the finest food and clothes, servants at your beck and call, having the respect of and power over the people. And now? You're in hiding, being chased by these people who are beneath you, stealing food, sleeping outside, staying in this second rate dwelling, not allowed to go to any of the lower floors for fear of a commoner spotting you, fear of these peasants, fear of your brother."_

Azula tried to block out his voice but as Ozai spoke she couldn't help but agree with him, her anger at her situation growing with his every word. It was when he said that final bit that Azula exploded. "I DO NOT FEAR ZUKO!" Remembering no one else was there Azula blushed and took a deep calming breath. The voice was mostly right though._ 'Father's always been right.' _Now was not the time to feel even a bit complacent just because she was one step closer to her goals, her current situation was not acceptable, not at all. Her success, however minor it was, made Azula eager to get to the next stages in her plans quickly and get to where she rightfully belonged.

"And then, father, we'll see who fears who. When I meet Zuko again, I'll crush him without mercy along with anyone else who gets in my way, including even the Avatar. I will lead the Fire Nation and make great grandfather Sozin's dream into reality; the entire world will be under the Fire Nation banner!" Azula vowed. She walked off cackling never noticing the pair of eyes that had been watching her for some time now.

* * *

Azula sat in silence inside the carriage currently taking her to the Phoenix Alliance base. The base was a factory located on the outskirts of town that, because of the end of the war, was recently ordered to be shut down that was declared off limits.

Shao Zu was unable to take her there himself because of his responsibilities as town head. The General may only be playing the part of a loyal town head to fool Zuko but to keep the charade up meant actually doing the duties of a town head. She looked up at her two escorts sitting across from her, both just as quiet as she was. They were wearing the domestic army uniform to look less conspicuous so Azula could see that their silence came not from discipline or professionalism but nervousness; they were afraid of her. Azula smirked.

Good.

The princess took that as a sign that things were slowly going back to the way they were.

'_Do you really consider the way things were a good thing?' _A voice that sounded like her mother's asked.

Azula responded with a low growl that scared the two men sitting across from her.

After a twenty minute ride the carriage reached its destination. Azula took a look around. Apparently this part of Huangjin Huo was off limits as the surrounding area was a virtual ghost town. She looked at the factory turned secret base. It looked like a typical Fire Nation factory; a large facility made of dark metal with many towering smokestacks and a lot of pipes running throughout the place. It was certainly big enough to hold a good number of soldiers and she supposed that a lesser person might deem the place too ominous to enter. And if they weren't intimidated by the outside then the dark hallway at the entrance inside would do the trick.

Her escorts headed in, a flame above their palms, with Azula following lighting her own flame. They lead her deep into the factory, turning down a lot of hallways, passing through many rooms, going up and down stairs multiple times, all the while not a single sign of life could be detected.

Azula was getting annoyed. "How much further must we go?"

One of the escorts gulped. "We've still got this corridor, another two rooms, a flight of stairs to go down, and then the tunnel."

'_Tunnel?' _Azula briefly wondered before huffing. "Are there no quicker ways to get there?" She complained.

"This is the only way to get here." The other escort spoke. "Did you notice all of those dead ends we walked by?" Azula nodded. "Most of those are actually just sheets of metal that were put up recently as to create a maze to the back of the complex."

"General Shao Zu ordered all of this? He's more cautious than I thought."

Escort #2 shook his head. "Actually these were already here when the General came to town."

Escort #1 snorted. "Yeah apparently the previous mayor thought civil war would happen back during the summer, saying something about how easily you took Ba Sing Se and how it wouldn't be long before you set your sights on your father's crown."

Azula's eyes narrowed. "He thought I would be the traitor of the family?" She questioned in an icy tone. "Who was this mayor? What is his name?" She demanded of them.

Escort #1 blinked. "Uh, I think his name was Howze, of the Néng family."

"Howze of the Néng family. I must remember to have him executed when I'm Fire Lord."

Escort #1 sputtered. "Execution? Are you serious?"

"Very. He basically accused me of treason which means he has accused the Fire Lord of treason, and that is an unforgivable crime." Azula fixed them with a glare. "Am I wrong?"

The escorts looked at each other then shook their heads. "No, Your Highness." Escort #2 said. They faced forward and continued on until they reached a set of doors with a pair of soldiers standing guard in front. "Not much further now Princess."

"Well it's about time." Azula grumbled to herself as guards opened the doors.

Azula was pretty sure they were below ground level and the earthen tunnel beyond the doors proved her to be correct. There was another pair of guards on the other side of the door that bowed to the princess as she passed. The tunnel was bigger than she thought, being about three times taller than the door. Torches lined the walls all the way from one end of the tunnel to the other. The main entrance to the base were a pair of large iron doors sealed with a firebending lock that would require four simultaneous fire blasts, a trio of guards standing outside. They stepped out facing the door, Escort #2 joining them, and together the four let loose blasts of fire. The door unlocked and slowly started to open, the guards bowing to Azula as she passed.

'_Finally. This is the beginning of my path back to glory!'_ Azula thought with glee as she walked in.

The base was a huge cavern, huge enough for Azula to idly wonder if it was natural (And if it wasn't, how did they get it this big.) On one side of the cavern were a number of Fire Nation tents, on another side there was a large amount of crates and barrels she was sure were filled with supplies, and across from there were several sparring circles, many of which were being used.

Azula gazed around with a frown. There were far less soldiers here than she expected there to be, just over a hundred men. "Is this the entire alliance?" Azula asked with unease. An army of this size would be outnumbered by Zuko's defenses 50 to 1; in terms of brute strength her army would be massacred. Azula banished that thought from her head. That didn't matter, brute force wasn't Azula's style anyway; she preferred to outmaneuver her opponents.

Escort #2 shook his head. "These are all the men in the area. Our entire force is scattered throughout the Fire Nation."

Azula felt some relief at that. Though she has faced, and prevailed over, worst odds, and was sure that she could find a way to win the day with the resources that were in front of her, Azula wanted to even the playing field as best she could and gather all the strength she could get. One thing she learned on the day of the comet was that there was some truth to the phrase 'Strength in numbers'. If she had waited until after she was crowned Fire Lord to banish everyone, she wouldn't be in this predicament.

No.

Azula shook her head. She shouldn't have banished those people period. She decided weeks ago that those were foolish choices made during moments of weakness. Azula looked at the two men standing on either side of her and stepped back suddenly feeling uncomfortable being between them. In fact she didn't feel comfortable being in this place with all these people she didn't know anything about. She glanced behind her and saw that the door was shut, trapped. She started to panic, her breathing getting harder, as thoughts of these people turning on her raced through her mind.

Azula clutched her head. _'No! Not again! Get a hold of yourself!'_

"Princess?"

Azula looked up at her escorts who were looking down at her curiously, she had apparently dropped down to her knees.

"Are you alright?"

Azula shakily stood up. "I'm fine, just a little dizzy. If I could find a place to lie down…"

"Of course. Right this way." They said before leading her to the tents.

She was tired, that's all it was. She was slipping into bouts of madness because of drowsiness. Azula just had to make sure she was well rested at all times and it wouldn't happen again, she was sure of it. There was nothing more to it than that.

* * *

Naruto yawned as he pushed himself up on the bed. He didn't realize how tired he was until he hit the mattress, he felt so much more energized than he did last night. He glanced around the room and did a double take at the curtains and the orange light coming from behind them.

"What the?" Frowning, Naruto walked over, opened the curtains, and peered outside, blinking in surprise at what he saw.

The sun was setting, already halfway below the horizon.

It wasn't even midnight when he fell asleep and he was just now waking up in the late afternoon. Well that explained why he was so refreshed.

'_Who knew time travel was so exhausting? Although immediately pulling an all nighter while carrying a person and making all those Kage Bunshin probably didn't help.'_

Naruto threw on his clothes, got his things together, and hurried out, tossing the key on the reception desk as he ran by. Naruto had planned to have learned more about the world and already locating Jiraiya by this time but that idea was now shot.

Or maybe not.

The young shinobi took to the rooftops.

His master was known as many things in Konoha; legendary Sannin, author, super pervert, and spymaster. Jiraiya was a master at gathering information, Naruto had to admit that, and after two days of being here Naruto was sure the man had gotten all the info they needed to get started on their quest. All Naruto had to do now was just located the old perv.

Landing on a building in the center of town, Naruto closed his eyes and made a one handed seal. When he opened his eyes they were no longer blue, but now they were like black and white spiral disks, with the black swirl emanating from his pupil, like a hypno circle. "_Reibaigan (Psychic Eye)._"

The Reibaigan has several abilities, some unique to itself, and some similar to other doujutsu, and tracking was one of three abilities the Reibaigan was better at than any other doujutsu, in his opinion. Similar to the Byakugan, the Reibaigan could see through solid objects and its range of vision was even greater than the Byakugan's, or at least his range of vision was greater than Neji's. And yet it wasn't considered one of the three great doujutsu.

His eyes started to spin as he started to scan the town for any sign for his master, double checking the all bathhouses, bars, and hot springs. His eyes stopped spinning and he sighed. Jiraiya wasn't here, there wasn't a trance of him to be found in town. That meant to find the man he would have to expand his senses even further.

Naruto groaned. "It's normally a bad idea using this technique when I'm out in the open without someone watching my back but I really don't have much of a choice." He formed the ram hand seal. "_Kusawake (Pathfinder)._" The whites of his eyes started to glow in a yellow-white color, making the black spirals more prominent, while a line of white light, invisible to the naked eye, ran from his feet, over the side of the building, down the street, and out Huangjin Huo, far out of Huangjin Huo. Images of rapidly passing scenery flowed through Naruto's head finally stopping at the image of an island.

Naruto's eyes faded back to the normal black and white Reibaigan then back to his normal blue. He turned northeast and frowned. "What the hell? Why is he so far away? And he's on a freakin' island which means I can't get there on foot! Well I can, but it's gonna take almost three days to reach him, if he doesn't move that is. Hopefully he knows to stay in place until I find him." Throwing one more glare off in the distance, Naruto jumped down in an alleyway and walked in the street, hood pulled over his head and hands stuffed in his pockets.

* * *

A group of soldiers stopped on the path just outside of Huangjin Huo, Colonel Wong at the forefront. Wong stared into the town. "We'll find her here." He announced.

The soldiers gave the scarred colonel bewildered looks. "What makes you say that? We couldn't find any trails for us to follow." One soldier asked.

"Since we've been chasing her, Princess Azula has been headed in this direction. That village we searched yesterday is the only town between here and where she got away the other night and even after our second check this morning before we left there was no sign that she had ever been there." Wong explained as he steered his rhino into town. "Search every inch of this place. She will be here, if not now then eventually and we'll be here to catch her."

* * *

Shao Zu walked into underground base and headed straight the command tent with a frown on his face.

An attendant ran up to him. "Greetings General." He saluted and started walking alongside Shao Zu.

"Where's the princess?"

"Currently resting in one of the tents. She wasn't feeling well."

Shao Zu's frown lessened. "Is that right? I want all officers Major rank and above in the command tent in ten minutes." Shao Zu ordered.

The attendant bowed and started to walk away.

"And one more thing. Don't notify the princess about this."

The attendant looked shocked but nodded nonetheless and went off.

* * *

Naruto figured it'd be best to get some information before he headed out; even he knew that travelling in a foreign land without knowing anything about the place was a terrible idea. One thing he learned about information gathering was that the best place to get some was at a bar.

It didn't take too long for Naruto to spot one and judging by the low level of noise there weren't a lot of people inside. He entered discreetly and looked around. The place wasn't too empty; there were enough people in here so he wouldn't instantly attract attention to himself.

He made his way to the back and paused as he walked past a balding older man sitting by himself who looked down on his luck before taking a seat across from the depressed-looking man. The man glanced up at him, taking note of his short stature. "Can I help you?"

Naruto glanced off to the side. "I hope so. I could use a quick tutoring lesson."

"Tutoring?" The man sneered. "Does this look like a school? This is a bar, _kid_, and you're not supposed to be here so scram."

Naruto raised his hands up defensively. "Hold on now, I can make this worth your while." He pulled out a bag of coins and tossed it at the man.

The man peered into the bag and widened his eyes. "20 copper pieces, 20 silver pieces, and 20 gold pieces?" He looked back up at Naruto. "The offer is tempting, very tempting, but I won't be much of help. I'm a laid off factory worker not a teacher." He tossed the bag back to Naruto.

"Do you know about the current state of the world?" Naruto asked. The man nodded. Naruto tossed the bag back. "You'll be fine…"

The man pocketed the bag. "Lim. So what do you mean exactly by current state of the world?"

Naruto scratched his head. "Well I know the Fire Nation was at war with other lands for one hundred years and that's about it. Who were the other lands involved in the war?"

Naruto got the feeling he just said something extremely stupid judging by the way Lim was gaping at him in disbelief.

"You don't know who was involved in the war that was fought by the entire world?" Lim asked slowly.

"The-the entire world?" Naruto sputtered.

Lim nodded. "Yeah, all four nations. What, have you been living under a rock? After the Fire Nation wiped out the Air Nomads we started attacking the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes, almost wiped out the Southern Water Tribe. We briefly conquered the Earth Kingdom a few months ago after Princess Azula conquered Ba Sing Se, but then-"

"The Fire Nation started the war?" Naruto screamed. _'That little-! She made it sound like they were forced into war!'_ Something the man said just occurred to Naruto. "You said wiped out. You mean like their army, right?"

Lim shook his head. "No, I mean the entire civilization was destroyed. Seriously how do you not know this?"

"You also said they wiped out another land, the Water Tribes?"

"No we almost wiped out the Southern Water Tribe while on the other hand we weren't able to do much to the Northern Water Tribe." Lim leaned in and started talking in a low voice. "It's rumored that Ozai's big plan to finish things in the Earth Kingdom was to use the power of Sozin's Comet and burn the place to the ground just like we did with the Air Nomads."

"So one nation was destroyed, another was half destroyed, and the last was going to be destroyed. What was the cause of the war? Territory issues? Someone crossed into someone else's borders and it was taken as an act of war?"

"I guess you can say that. Fire Lord Sozin wanted more territory and crossed into other nations to get some, and that was taken as an act of war. As children we were taught that this war was our way of spreading the 'prosperity' of the Fire Nation to the rest of the world." Lim snorted. "What a load of crap. How about spreading that 'prosperity' throughout your own nation 'giving' it to others."

Naruto clenched his fists. "So this was all just because a maniac wanted to rule the world."

A woman from the next table scoffed. "Ha! That's giving him too much credit if you ask me." Both males turned to the average looking lady as she pulled up a chair. "If it really was about ruling the world then our borders would have expanded into the other nations."

"Didn't we do that with the Earth Kingdom colonies?" Lim asked dryly.

The lady gave Lim a flat look. "Yes. But tell me why after we defeated the Air Nomads we didn't take the Air Temples? Or why we didn't have any bases or settlements in the Southern Water Tribe when they were so much more helpless than the Earth Kingdom?"

Naruto and Lim blinked and looked at each other before shrugging.

"Because we never had any use for the temples, especially after we killed the dragons and there's not a single person from the Fire Nation who wants to live the South Pole! This war was nothing more than senseless destruction." She hissed. "Committing genocide isn't spreading prosperity and if that plan for burning the Earth Kingdom down succeeded that would have meant that hundred years and millions of lives were wasted for a giant. barren. wasteland!"

Naruto and Lim blinked. "Wow." They both said.

"You know I've never thought of it like that." Lim said. "Kinda makes me more ticked off at the royal family."

"So who do you support?" The woman asked Lim.

Lim shrugged. "Eh… well I definitely don't support those maniacs Ozai and Azula," Naruto's head snapped up at the mention of Azula. "I'm waiting to see what Zuko does before I make a decision."

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked.

Lim sighed. "Seriously, how do you not know? Right now the Fire Nation is split on who should rule; Zuko, Ozai, Azula, Iroh, or someone else outside Sozin's line."

"Why is it split so many ways?" Naruto wondered.

"Because the Fire Nation is also split on the decision of stopping the war." The lady answered. "Those who want the war to continue want either Ozai or Azula on the throne. More so Ozai than Azula because, well, he was the previous Fire Lord and he's not a insane teenager."

"That's true." Lim spoke. "But on the other hand people aren't too keen on following a Fire Lord who can't firebend and decide Azula is the better choice. And then there are those who think neither one of them are fit to rule and want to do it themselves."

* * *

"I've been informed that Colonel Wong is here searching the town for the princess." Shao Zu told the men gathered before him.

They were silent for a moment before a middle aged lt. colonel spoke up. "And you're telling us this why?"

The other officers nodded in agreement. Sending a messenger would have been sufficient enough, hell, he didn't even need to tell them period; he should be able to handle this himself.

"So you know what excuse to give the princess when she asks why she can't go out." Shao Zu said. "Speaking of the princess, she's the reason why I'm here; Scenario A is a go."

Many of the officers sighed in relief.

A long mustached colonel looked a little disappointed. "Scenario A huh. That's almost a shame, she had such potential."

"So what's being said about her is true then?" An older goateed lt. general asked.

"Oh yeah, it's true. This morning I caught her talking to her father." Shao Zu told them.

The men cringed and groaned.

"Does she think that we're the Phoenix Alliance?" A young Major asked.

"Yes. Azula's been completely isolated in that facility so she doesn't know where and how the rebel factions are known to operate." Shao Zu explained.

The mustached colonel sighed. "So we're really going through with this plan of yours?"

Shao Zu looked at him. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet?"

"No no. I'm just thinking about how difficult this is going to be."

The old lt. general scoffed. "Well of course. Installing a figurehead is not an easy task. Maintaining one is even more difficult."

Shao Zu smirked. "Yes, but we of the Black Fire Order will be successful."

* * *

'_Why does everyone betray me?'_

Behind the tent Azula listened in, fists clenched, teeth grit, trembling in rage. How dare they! These trash had the audacity to write her off as crazy and then try to manipulate her and seize her power.

'_The fools wouldn't even know what to do with such a position. They're military men, not politicians, they wouldn't last a week.'_ Azula thought with contempt.

She wasn't going to let them get that week though.

* * *

"And things aren't much better on the anti-war side of things. For Zuko, it's not so much that he has supporters as it is just people going with the flow of things." The lady explained.

"That and they're afraid of the Avatar." Lim added.

"There's also that." The lady agreed. "But I'm like a lot of other people and can't accept that kid as Fire Lord. In the course of one year he went from being the banished prince to the fugitive prince to the redeemed prince to the traitor prince to Fire Lord, and he betrayed a lot people during that time. Who knows what he'll decide to be and whose side he'll decide to be on next. And Iroh's no better."

"Who's Iroh?" Naruto asked.

"Zuko's uncle and the former Crown Prince, Azulon's first son." The lady answered.

"He's the first son? How the hell did Ozai get the crown?"

"It was weird, unlike Zuko, Iroh was the pride of the Fire Nation, the famous Dragon of the West, but out of nowhere, at Azulon's funeral, Azulon had named Ozai as his successor." Lim took a swig of his drink. "Many people were expecting a huge battle over the crown but Iroh never challenged Ozai."

Naruto thought he had the rest figured out. "So he was scared. And now that Ozai's powerless he's making a play for the throne."

The lady rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding? He's refusing the crown and is running a tea shop in Ba Sing Se."

Naruto fell out of his chair.

"And it's a well known fact Iroh cares deeply for Zuko." Lim added. "I heard that Iroh encouraged Zuko to take the throne."

The lady scoffed. "Neither one of them deserves the crown. No one in that family does." She started listing off on her hand. "Ozai's a megalomaniac calling himself the Phoenix King, Azula's an insane sociopath, Iroh's a lazy fool who'd rather serve tea in the Earth Kingdom than rule the Fire Nation, and I already told you what I think about Zuko."

Lim looked at her. "So you're one of those who hate the whole Sozin line?"

She slammed her fist on the table. "That's right. Sozin started this war that took the lives of my father, brothers, and sister. Ozai and Azula were going to further turn this war into mindless destruction, caring nothing about anything but furthering themselves. And Zuko and Iroh are being called heroes and being treated as if they've done nothing wrong when they are probably the only people who have fought against every nation."

* * *

Shao Zu stood up. "Well if you'll excuse gentlemen, a mayor's duty is never done." He stepped out the tent his attention immediately drawn to the opening iron doors. He frowned as he watched a small cloaked person walk out the doors, the guards bowing as they passed.

He took several steps when the place was rocked by explosions.

Alarmed, Shao Zu spun backwards looking at their weapons stock which was now mostly in flame. The other high ranked officers ran out of the tent, franticly looking around.

"What happened? Are we under attack?" one of the colonels shouted.

A soldier turned to him. "No, sir. Seems one of the barrels of blasting jelly caught fire and exploded, igniting several other barrels."

Shao Zu gazed back at the large fire, another explosion adding to the inferno. He felt murderous. That was most of their weapons supply. Who the hell plays with fire anywhere near barrels of blasting jelly! Whoever did this would suffer dearly.

"General Shao Zu, sir."

Shao Zu turned to his attendant, taking notice of his disheveled look and burnt shoulder.

"The princess. She heard about the meeting and wanted to attend."

Shao Zu already didn't like where this was going.

"I managed to change her mind and lead her to her tent but when we got inside she attacked me."

Shao Zu grabbed the man by his collar. "Where is she?"

"G-gone." He choked.

Shao Zu's eyes widened and snapped his head towards the doors.

'_The person in the cloak!'_

The general let out a primal roar. "AZULA!"

* * *

Get them before they get you, a preemptive strike, the very principle of firebending. It was an art Azula mastered years ago.

Azula burst into the factory and quickly ran up the stairs.

The guards stared dumbly after her. "Princess Azula?" An explosion just outside the door knocked them off their feet.

Azula hoped those bombs she threw caused enough of a roof fall to at least buy her time, which she would need plenty of to get through the maze that was the factory. Luckily Azula had been paying close attention to the route they had taken.

She ran past a dead end and stopped as she remembered something.

* * *

"_Did you notice all of those dead ends we walked by?" Azula nodded. "Most of those are actually just sheets of metal that were put up recently as to create a maze to the back of the complex."_

* * *

Azula stared at the wall, an expression of determination on her face. Taking a deep breath Azula dropped into a wide stance and rotated her arms in wide arcs, electricity trailing from her extended fingers. She brought her fingers together then thrust her hand out. A bolt of lightning shot forth and struck the wall, blasting a hole in the wall. Azula smirked and jumped through the hole.

* * *

Naruto was silent for a moment. "…Is Azula really as dangerous as you say?"

"Oh yeah." Lim nodded. "The Earth Kingdom capitol, Ba Sing Se, for a hundred years we were unable to conquer that city. Even Iroh, who laid siege to it for 600 days, was unsuccessful. But Azula, with just a couple of her friends, conquered it in like a week."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Crap!" He jumped out of his seat ran towards the door.

"Hey what's wrong?" she asked.

"I royally fucked up!" He called back. They watched him get about halfway to the door before he stopped and ran in reverse back to the table jogging in place. "One more thing; is the current Avatar a good guy?"

The pair blinked before simultaneously answering. "Yeah."

Naruto's mouth was pulled in a thin line while his eye twitched. He nodded to himself. "Oh yeah. I'm so kicking her butt." Then he ran out the bar, tossing a bag of coins at the lady, much to her surprise.

Not only did he just prevent a crazy princess bent on world destruction from being captured, he also helped her make contact with her army. Jiraiya would have to wait; he had to do something about this now. What exactly he was going to do he didn't know yet.

Just as he exited the bar Naruto slammed into something and was knocked off his feet.

'_Well this is a great start.' _Naruto thought sarcastically.

The thing he ran into groaned. "Ugh. Hey watch where you're going you little- hey it's you!"

Naruto looked up at the angry face of a soldier and his group of friends. _'Yep. Great start.'_

* * *

In hindsight creating those shortcuts may not have been as helpful as Azula wished. For one, using those shortcuts made her lose track of where she was and second she had to blast through six more walls and shooting that much lightning had really drained Azula. She was out of shape and a bit rusty, but then what did she expect after two months of being locked in a mental facility in a straight jacket and feet shackled to a bed.

Not even two blocks away from the factory Azula had to stop to catch her breath. Turning down an alley, Azula leaned against a wall and began to go over the situation.

She had to get out of town as soon as possible lest she be trapped; Shao Zu was probably already ordering a perimeter to be set up. There was the harbor at the northeast part of town but the general was likely to shut it down so getting out through there wasn't an option. Her best chance of escaping would be to go into the wilderness, again.

Azula grimaced. That was something she really didn't want to do. She was a princess raised in a palace with servants to tend to her every whim, living in the wild was not only humiliating and irritating, it was also something she never bothered to learn how to do. She only survived by stealing from towns, and she was sure that was how Colonel Wong had been able to track her.

Before she could contemplate the matter further, a pair of soldiers walked by and spotted her. "There she is!"

Azula cursed and dashed deeper into the town.

* * *

Naruto ducked under a fireball, watching it sail into a fruit stand. "Hey, watch it!" he called back. Several more fireballs flew at him forcing the young shinobi to roll out the way. Gritting his teeth, Naruto sprang forward, turning down another street. He immediately turned and ran in the opposite direction as another group of soldiers chased after him.

Turning down several more streets Naruto finally ran into a crowded street. Smirking, Naruto jumped over the crowds ran on the rooftops. "You know what the best thing is about roof hopping? No crowds up here to slow you down!" The teen taunted. His laughter was cut short when he felt his head throb and he instantly jumped to the other side of the street, a fireball crashing into where he previously was. _'Thank you Early Danger Detection.'_

Gazing at the spreading fire, Naruto frowned. Though he was expecting property damage, Naruto wasn't expecting the soldiers to be the ones causing it. Still gazing at the fire, Naruto wondered how they managed to fire in such a crowded area. Looking back the blond got his answer.

The crowd had parted for the new additions to the pursuing soldiers, more soldiers riding on those weird looking rhinos; the big scarred man riding at the head was giving him a particularly intense glare. "Are you kidding me? That's so not fair!" Naruto complained.

Wong glared at fleeing boy. "Do not lose him! He's our only lead to Princess Azula!"

Naruto almost stumbled. He turned angrily to the soldiers. "That's why you're chasing me? Because of her!" Naruto's E.D.D. went off again. He leapt, hearing the familiar whistle of metal cutting through the air. He looked down at the arrows imbedded in the roof then over to the Yu Yan Archers running across from him. They fired more arrows that Naruto countered with several kunai. "You know normally I'd play with you for awhile but I'm just not in the mood for that right now." He threw a kunai with an explosive note attached to it ahead of the archers. The Yu Yan looked at what they thought was a badly thrown knife, and the slow burning paper tied to it oddly before they were thrown back by the explosion.

Naruto jumped down to streets, having run out roof to run on. Looking back he saw that he was still a good distance ahead of the soldiers and was steadily widening the gap between them. "You and your freaky looking rhinos will never catch me!" He started laughing obnoxiously.

Just then more than a dozen soldiers entered the street ahead of him. "It's the kid from last night!" Naruto yelped and turned down another street with the soldiers right behind him.

"**Just when I thought you couldn't get any more pathetic."**

'_I don't have time for this. In case you haven't noticed, I'm being chased here.'_

Kyuubi growled.** "You should be tearing through these fools instead of running away."**

'_Are you kidding me? Do you know how many firebenders there are behind me? I don't stand a chance against them.'_

"**You're such a moron." **Kyuubi sneered. **"Did you forget that you're in the past? Things are different here." **

'_Like what?'_

"**Like how benders in this time period are much weaker than the benders in our own."**

'_Really?'_ Naruto was skeptical.

"**You doubt me? At this point in time mortals mainly fight using bending."**

'…_And?' _

"**And they bend without any jutsu, there are very few in the world right now who knows how to use chakra."**

'_They still have bending.'_

"**Yes, and you saw firsthand how pathetic it was when you defeated those firebenders the other night."**

Naruto thought back on it. He had been so angry before the fight and high on adrenaline afterwards that he didn't really think about it, but now that he was, he realized they were surprisingly easy to defeat. He's never had such easy time against a firebender, and the fact that there were several of them made it even more shocking. He would normally have to go all out against that many firebenders. '_All of the benders I've ever fought before had been chūnin level or higher. But those guys, it was like fighting bandits who knew how to throw fire.'_

One of the soldiers spoke up. "Listen, the princess changed her mind, she would prefer that you'd be brought back alive, but she would also understand if alive wasn't possible, so surrender quietly and you'll get to live longer."

'_My mind is telling me don't, but my instincts are saying to go for it, and I've been taught to always follow my instincts.' _Naruto stopped running and faced off with the soldiers.

"Is that right? Well I've got news for you pal," Naruto thrust his fist out. "I'm taking you, hime-chan, and your entire organization down."

The soldier shook his head disappointedly. "Don't say we didn't give you a chance kid." He said before motioning for the soldiers to charge.

Naruto ignited his fists and took off towards the charging soldiers. The soldiers either punched out fireballs or pointed their spears at him while Naruto responded by rapidly punching his blazing fists at them, his hands seemingly multiplying. _"__Hidō: Rensha Shindou (Fire Art: Rapid-fire Impact)!__"_ The charging opponents clashed and were now standing back to back to each other, both sides in an attack stance. Seconds passed before the Fire Nation soldiers collapsed. Naruto straightened up and turned back to them, looking at them with his fox like squint, innocently scratching the back of his head. "Wow you guys do suck."

Still looking at the fallen men, Naruto thrust his arm to the side, dispersing the fireball that had been shot at him. He turned his head at Wong, whose hand still extended from his attack, and his men. "Hey enough with the fire blasts already; I'm not your enemy."

Wong narrowed his eyes. "I'm supposed to believe that after you attack my men and these town guards, and aid and abet a fugitive?"

Naruto nervously chuckled and rubbed his neck. "That was all just a misunderstanding on my part. I thought you guys were-"

"Although it is hard to believe that a pipsqueak rose flamer like you defeated any of my men." Wong said.

Naruto froze for a second then twitched. "Did he just say 'pipsqueak'?" He asked himself in a low tone while still smiling.

Wong turned to some of his men. "Is this runt really the one we're looking for?"

Naruto twitched some more. "Runt?" He muttered darkly.

The men cringed under their superior's stare and nodded. "Yes, sir. But like we said, he's stronger than he looks." A soldier said to their defense.

Wong turned back to Naruto, studying him for a bit before scoffing. "He looks puny to me." Naruto started twitching more violently. "Get him." Wong ordered to another bunch of men as he turned back to the first group. "Expect a reevaluation of your qualifications as soldiers when this is all over. For you to lose to some punk kid is embarrass-" A body flew right between them, hitting the ground with a grunt. Surprised, the colonel whirled forward and saw several more of his men flying through the air towards him. Wong rolled off his mount, avoiding getting hit by one of his flying men.

Naruto stood there surrounded by awestruck soldiers, his eyes shadowed over and a flaming fist extended out in front of him. "That was three." Naruto said in a soft yet dark tone. "You called me 'runt', 'pipsqueak', and 'puny'. You better watch out, because this puny pipsqueak-runt is going to kick your ass!" Naruto declared as ran at the scarred colonel, going right past the men surrounding him.

Two firebenders shot at his back. Naruto glanced back at the fireballs and turned around with a roundhouse kick, turning the flames crimson and sending them back with even greater speed and force at the soldiers, blasting them off their feet, and continued on towards Wong.

Snarling, Wong and two of his men sent streams of fire at the boy. Naruto scoffed at the incoming flames. "You're gonna need more than that to stop me!" He reared his arms back and inhaled deeply. "_Hidō: Karyūmure (Fire Art: Fire Dragon Swarm)!__"_ Naruto unleashed two large dragon shaped blasts of fire from his hands and released a third blast from his mouth.

A well-known fact about rose flamers is that not only are their flames the weakest, but also, as children, they lacked the ability to produce the average amount of flames, so the Fire Nation men were not only surprised by the size of Naruto's attack but also how easily it tore through their own flames. Wong and the two men dove out the way of the flames that crashed into the ground with an explosion.

Wong rolled back to his feet with a wild look on his face. "Attack! All firebenders attack now!"

Fire came from the front and behind, engulfing Naruto in a large ball of flame. When the flames died down what was left a burnt log, the young ninja was nowhere to be seen. Wong and most of the soldiers looked arguing around for a sign of the boy while the others stared at the burnt piece of wood that they knew wasn't there before.

Suddenly a red light flared above them. The soldiers looked up and dropped their jaws when they saw the huge ball of fire Naruto was holding above him as he hung in the air. He started squeezing the fireball, compressing it until the ball that had started off larger than his body was now the size of his head. _"__Hidō: Ririshii Bakuhatsu (Fire Art: Gallant Detonation)!__"_ Naruto grabbed the ball and chucked it down at the soldiers.

The soldiers watched the projectile not as intimidated as before because of the new size and even more so as they saw it was going for the big gap between the soldiers.

"Get him while he's still in the air!" Wong ordered, charging up a powerful fire blast himself. But before he or any of the others could fire the crimson ball hit the ground.

* * *

A soldier was blasted into a wall, joining his other four comrades into unconsciousness. Azula stood over her fallen opponents, panting heavily. Fighting a total of twelve men who weren't master-level in under an hour and she was this weary. When she got out of here her first priority was going to get back into top fighting form.

BOOM!

The princess spun around and saw an explosion of red flames not too far away.

* * *

Shao Zu gazed at the large rising mass of red flames in the distance. "What in the world?"

* * *

'_Red fire?' _Azula's eyes widened. "Uzumaki. He's still here?"

"It's the princess!"

Azula looked back at the three soldiers running at her. She kicked a blast back that caught one of them and ran away.

Why was Naruto still here? What was he doing to create such a huge explosion? And how was this going to affect her escape?

* * *

Naruto looked at the destruction in front of him. "Maybe a B-Rank move like that was too much?" Buildings were on fire, the street was ablaze, and there was a large shallow crater. Scattered around it were the slightly burnt unconscious soldiers. "Whoops."

He heard Kyuubi let out what almost sounded like a content sigh. **"Ah, now that's more like it, crushing your enemies with overwhelming force, and using my flames to do it."**

'_Oh shut up. The only reason I did that was because those jerks called me pipsqueak. I'm not short!'_

"**Yeah, it's just that everyone else is really tall."** Kyuubi sarcastically replied.

'_Yeah that's- Screw you, you damn furball!' _Naruto cut the connection. He still had to find and stop Azula somehow.

"What do you think happened?" He heard a voice ask.

Naruto disappeared from sight just as a squad of soldiers turned the corner.

They went around and started snuffing out the fires with their bending. "Man what a mess."

One soldier noticed the men lying on the ground. "Hey look." He checked them for pulses. "They're alive."

The others came over. "It's Colonel Wong and his squad."

"Is this the princess' doing?"

"I don't know. That explosion wasn't blue."

"Yeah and I heard Wong was chasing some boy."

"Boy? You mean the one from last night? He's still in town?"

One guy groaned. "Great. That means we're going to have to kill him too alongside the princess. Man what a pain." The others grumbled in agreement.

"What do you mean kill alongside the princess?"

The soldiers spun around, seeing Naruto standing there with a cold look on his face.

* * *

Azula hopped over a fence that was seconds later destroyed as soldiers rushed through the wreckage. She used everything she could to slow them down; fire, barrels, crates, people, falling rubble from walls and buildings she had blasted.

Two firebenders stepped out in front of her and unleashed streams of fire. She slid under the flames, popped up in-between the two, stabbing two daggers of fire into their sides, and continued running.

More fire was hurled at her, scaring civilians away. Azula ran with them, getting deeper into the crowd before ducking out and entering a building. It was a clothing shop with two other people inside. One of them, a portly woman, hurried over to her with a big smile. "Welcome. How may I help you?"

"Move it." Azula pushed her out the way and ran into the backroom and out the back way that lead to an alley.

After running down the long winding alleyway, she emerged, surprisingly, at the warehouse district. Frowning, Azula moved forward, having studied the town layout earlier and knowing that the quickest route out of town would involve crossing through here.

She hadn't even taken three steps before a blast of fire blocked

her path. Azula turned to the source of the fireblast. "Shao Zu." The teen spat venomously.

Shao Zu stood with a platoon of soldiers behind him, grinning cockily. "It ironic, the place where we started our partnership is where it's going to end."

Azula fell into a defensive stance, slowly edging away from him.

Shao Zu waved a finger disapprovingly. "Uh-uh-uh." He whistled and soldiers came out from behind the buildings and the stacks of crates.

Azula glanced around; the only spot where there weren't any soldiers was the wall of the warehouse to her left which she quickly turned her back to. "It's doubtful that you plan on just capturing me now that I've discovered your true intentions."

Shao Zu's grin widened. "It seems insanity hasn't dulled that sharp mind of yours." Azula snarled at that, causing the general to laugh. She launched twin shots of orange fire at the man that he swatted to the ground. "But it has apparently dulled your firebending." He said with a chuckle.

Azula stared at her hands as if she was betrayed. Why was everything getting taken away from her? Her throne, her country, her friends, her mother, now her flames, and soon her life. Azula, with angry tears running down her face, slumped to the ground, going down on all fours, defeated.

"Giving up? That's good, you recognize you have no chance. When I tell your brother the story of how we were unable to capture you alive, well, I doubt he'll be too disappointed. Though the boss isn't going to be too happy that Plan A didn't work out but I'm sure he'll understand, given the circumstances." He and many others dropped into firebending stances. "Goodbye, Princess."

Azula looked up. She was defeated but she still had honor, she wasn't going to turn away, she was going to face her demise with her head held up. They unleashed streams of fire that combined into one large wave of fire.

Suddenly a bolt of red fire crashed down from the sky, exploding into a large wall of fire that blocked the wave. The clash of flames forced the soldiers back as everyone stared at the spectacle in shock. The flames died down enough for people to identify the interloper. "You!" Shao Zu exclaimed.

Azula was even more shocked about the person standing before her. "Uzumaki."

He stood with his back to her, not saying a word.

Shao Zu grinned. "Well I must thank you for coming here yourself and saving us the trouble of finding you."

Naruto said nothing.

Azula stood up. "Why are you still here?" Naruto turned his head slightly without looking at her. "I tried to have you killed. You should be long gone."

Naruto was unresponsive for a moment before he jumped backwards and floored her with an elbow to the top of her head, much to everyone's disbelief.

Azula stood up glaring at Naruto and holding her throbbing head. "What the hell was that for?"

"That was for trying to kill me." He said, still not facing her.

"For that you elbowed me? You could have just left me to die. Why did you save me?"

"Didn't I already tell you, even if they are jerks, I don't turn my back on my friends."

Azula's eyes widened before narrowing and she turned her head away. "You're a fool."

"Yes, I must agree with the young lady on that." Shao Zu spoke.

"And I must say that you're a lying bastard Mr. General-of-the Black-Fire-Order."

Shao Zu's eyes widened briefly. "So you know?"

"Yeah, I had to beat it out of some of your men."

"Well now I really can't let you leave you alive." He launched another blast of fire, his men following with their own blasts, creating another wave of fire. "Block this boy!" He smirked as he watched the fire wash over the teens. It died however when the fire cleared and all that was there were two burning crates. "They ran off!" How? He didn't know. "Spread out and-" A shuriken flew past his head from behind, cutting Shao Zu's cheek. "Find-" He stared at the weapon stuck in the ground. "Them." He looked back at where the shuriken came from and found them on the roof of another warehouse.

Azula was confused, dizzy, and bit sick to her stomach. She didn't know what Uzumaki did or how he did it but one moment she was staring at large amount of fire coming at her, then the next moment she felt like she was getting pulled through a tube while moving so rapidly that she couldn't see her surroundings and ended up sitting on this roof. The firebending prodigy had looked down just as the flames from the attack cleared and the Black Fire soldiers realized they weren't there anymore. Azula thought they had made a clean getaway but then Naruto had thrown, with pretty good accuracy, Azula noticed, a shuriken at Shao Zu that nicked him. "Idiot! What did you do that for? We could have gotten away unnoticed."

"I wasn't trying to get away." Naruto said as he dropped his backpack and slipped off his cloak. He stepped forward and pointed down at the soldiers. "I'm taking you down!"

Shao Zu laughed. "Is that right? I saw what you used to block our attack; rose flames." The soldiers perked up at that, realizing what Shao Zu said was true. Some started laughing.

Azula thought about running but knew she wouldn't get far, not on her own. Naruto was her only chance to get out of this but the boy was determined to throw away his life and fight.

Naruto groaned. "Stop calling them that. First of all it's a stupid name; it sounds like a title you got stuck with because no one could come up with something that sounded better** (1)**, and second; they're not even 'Rose Flames'. 'Rose Flames' are red and orange, my flames have no orange in them."

"So they're pure red."

"No. They're red and black."

Shao Zu's grin dropped.

Azula snapped her head towards Naruto.

The soldiers stopped laughing.

There was a pause before the soldiers erupted in laughter while Azula continued to stare at Naruto whose face was unreadable.

"He said black fire!"

Naruto slid into a horse stance.

"Did he really just say that?"

He crossed his arms in front of him.

"What a joke!"

He inhaled deeply.

"Black fire. Ha!"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Naruto uncrossed his arms and fire poured from his body, spiraling into the sky as a massive pillar of flame that was undoubtedly red and black.

The soldiers stopped laughing, and it was doubtful that they were going to start up again. Shao Zu gaped at the tower of fire. "Impossible. Black fire is a myth. That's why we call ourselves The Black Fire Order, because to the people we're just a myth."

Azula, being so close, had to take a few steps back. _'No way. What's with this crazy amount of fire? I haven't seen anything like this since the day of comet.'_

Leaning against a wall at the edge of the grounds was the injured Colonel Wong, staring at the flames in awe. "Black tinged red fire, black is the fire that's supposed to be even hotter than white fire, the flames of hell."

The flames shrunk until only Naruto's hand was ignited. "You see. I don't have 'Rose Flame', I have 'Hellfire'." He smirked darkly.

The soldiers stared at him frightfully, some even taking steps back. "Heheheheheheheh." The men turned to their general, who was laughing and clapping. "What a marvelous demonstration. Color me impressed."

"You sure don't sound it." Naruto noted.

"Oh but I am; I'm just not worried. You see, your 'hellfire', while impressive, doesn't change the fact that you're just one boy and we're an entire company of men." The men realized he had a point and calmed down. "Or do you really think your 'hellfire' is enough all of us?"

Naruto looked at all the gathered soldiers and slowly extinguished his flame. "Yeah I don't think I can take you all with just my firebending."

Shao Zu smirked.

"I guess I'll use windbending. It is my best element."

Azula blinked. "What?"

"_Kazedō: Daitoppa (Wind Art: Great Breakthrough)!__" _Naruto thrust his palms forward and unleashed a powerful blast of red wind that tore through the grounds and sent a fourth of the soldiers flying.

Shao Zu stood there, just feet away from where the blast was sweeping by, paralyzed in shock, with his jaw dropped and his smirk guaranteed to never return. "Huh!"

Azula's eyes bugged out of her head as she witnessed the scene. "That was airbending." The question of why it was red was stuck in the back of her mind as she was still trying to process that the boy next to her just airbended.

Naruto looked at her strangely. "Airbending? No, that was windbending." He created a clone. "Stay with hime-chan. I'm about to go wild, so keep her safe and keep her here." He said the last part more sternly.

The clone flashed him a thumbs up. "Gotcha boss. Show them the power of the Konoha no Shinku Avatar!"

Everyone's eyes widened even further. While they didn't understand most of that title, they understood that last part. "Avatar?"

Miniature red tornados formed around Naruto's hands and he flew down towards the soldiers. Fireball after fireball was shot at him but he was able to weave his way through the barrage and past a line of soldiers to get right in Shao Zu's face in which he slammed his fist into and sent the general sailing through the air.

"General!" one of the soldiers cried as they watched him crash through the roof of a warehouse.

Soldiers including the higher ranked officers surrounded him. "You'll pay for that boy." The older lt. general growled.

Their only warning was his mouth twisting into a smirk before Naruto started to rapidly spin and created a tornado that sucked them, and any soldiers who were too close, up into the air.

Azula, still too shocked to take any action, sat and mutely watched the men get launched into the air. As they did Azula noticed something flying off them. "Blood? How?"

"With windbending." Azula turned to the clone inquisitively. "You don't know?" The clone asked innocently. "Water smashes, earth crushes, fire burns, and wind cuts." Azula raised an eyebrow. "It's a saying we have about the four elements. There's another version that states water chills, but that sounds lame." He waved his hand dismissively.

"Wind… cuts?" Azula looked down at the original Naruto who was charging at three men who shot streams of fire at the boy. He jumped over the blasts and landed behind the soldiers. Before they could fully turn around, Naruto, from several feet away, slashed at one with his arm and blood sprayed from the man's back as he fell forward. One of his partners lashed at Naruto with a fire whip, but he rolled out of the way and stabbed forward with his arm, shooting a thin blast of red wind that cut into his shoulder. The man grabbed his bleeding shoulder painfully and was blasted back by a gust of wind. The last guy punched a fireball at Naruto. Naruto sliced through it and did a horizontal swipe, cutting the man in the stomach.

The clone grinned. "It's the most offensive-type of bending. I mean, how can you block something you can't even touch?"

Azula frowned as she watched Naruto spit a tornado from his mouth that ripped through a path of soldiers. "I see." She didn't really. She's fought against an airbender before; the freakin' Avatar for Agni's sake, and has blocked his airbending several times, with her bare hands even. And airbending is an entirely defensive bending style, so what was he talking about offensive-type? And also…

"How is it that you can bend both fire and air? Only the Avatar can bend more than one element." She looked at the clone suspiciously.

He blinked back at her blankly. "Well you kind of just answered your own question."

Azula grabbed him by shirt and pulled him close. "Don't play with me! I've battled the Avatar several times so I know you're not him."

"Duh. Remember? I'm from the future. The guy you fought would be one of my past lives."

The princess looked at him with a deadpan expression. "Seriously?"

He glared at her. "How else do you explain two Avatars?"

There was no way to explain two Avatars. But there was no other way to explain how he could bend two elements either. She turned back to the original Naruto who was tearing through the soldiers- _'Is he actually laughing?' _-He was having the time of his life beating on these soldiers, completely different from the hesitant, pacifist Avatar that fled more often than he fought.

Naruto slammed two men heads together then jumped over them and kicked a shot of air that hit a man in the face. A spin kick sent a wave of wind that knocked back a group of soldiers. "This is great! I haven't kicked so much ass at once since that bandit camp last year!" Naruto laughed.

When he jumped over a shot of fire, several firebenders saw this as their chance and fired at him. But to their surprise, Naruto kicked the air and back flipped even higher, avoiding the shots, and skid to a stop in mid-air, crouched as if he was standing on solid ground.

"He can fly?"

Naruto took a look at the remaining men. _"_There are still like thirty of them. _Kazedō: Peretto Boufuu (Wind Art: Pellet Storm)!__"_ He spat out a flurry of small wind bullets that rained down on the soldiers. He swooped over them and surveyed the damage. There were about ten still standing, including a roughed up Shao Zu, who had a bloody nose and a swollen face.

Naruto floated in front of Azula and his clone. He glared down at the soldiers and cracked his knuckles. "There's a clinic on the other side of town, when you land there and they ask what happened to you, tell them you pissed off the Crimson Avatar!"

The soldiers gulped.

Naruto's eyes and tattoos glowed, a black spiral visible in each of his eyes. A strong red wind began to pick up around him. _"__Kazedō: Tatsu Shippuha (Wind Art: Dragon Hurricane Blast)!__" _He thrust both of his arms forward, sending forth all of that wind into a powerful torrent that took the shape of a dragon at the soldiers. They screamed at the sight of the wind dragon and tried to run away but were swept up, getting cut up and sent flying out of sight.

Naruto landed in front of Azula and his clone, a huge grin on his face and his hands hooked behind his head. "Did you see that? I just spanked an entire army of firebenders! They couldn't even touch me!"

The clone jumped up with an equally large grin on his face. "That's right! We're awesome!"

"Hell yeah!" They high fived each other and started laughing.

Azula slowly stood up and stared at the two laughing look-alikes deciding right there that today was officially the weirdest day of her life. In the future, however, when looking back on this day, Azula would claim it was pretty funny.

The two continued to laugh before the clone suddenly stopped, a horrified look coming to his face. "What's wrong?" Naruto asked. The clone pointed behind Naruto. Naruto turned around and that same horrified expression came to his face. Azula gazed at what they were looking at and her eyes widened a little.

That last attack had done more than just send those soldiers flying; it had also carved a path of destruction into the city. Buildings were torn apart, walls were now rubble, and fires had somehow been started. The surrounding area had also been completely wrecked from all of his previous attacks.

"Wow. When you go wild, you go wild all over the place." Azula commented.

Naruto groaned. "Not again. This happens every time I go into the Avatar State in a populated area."

"Well why don't you stop using it in populated areas if this happens every time?"

Both Naruto and the clone looked Azula like she just said something brilliant.

"You couldn't come to that conclusion on your own!" She angrily yelled at them. She rubbed her temple. "Oh Agni, I'm getting a migraine, you're actually giving me a migraine."

Naruto turned to his bunshin. "You think they'll let us get away with this when we tell them we stopped a rebel group?"

A warehouse suddenly collapsed to the side, hitting another warehouse and causing it to fall and hit another one, and that hit another one, and it hit another one, and that pattern continued until it reached the end row.

"No I don't think so. I'm going to go now. Bye." He disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Let's get out of here." Naruto ran over, grabbed his things, scooped Azula up bridal style, much to her surprise and displeasure, and flew off.

* * *

Sometime later several miles away, on a hill north of Huangjin Huo, Naruto sat on a boulder, staring off into the distance. Behind him, Azula sat propped up against a tree, staring intensely at the young Avatar. They had been sitting in silence for several minutes now. Finally it was Azula who broke the silence.

"So you're really from the future, an Avatar from the future."

"Yep. And you're a evil princess from a family of evil warlords who have been terrorizing the world for a hundred years."

She glared at him. "We're not evil. The Fire Nation is the greatest nation in the world and it's only right that our empire is spread across the world."

Naruto looked over at her incredulously. "Being the greatest doesn't give you the right to conquer the world."

Azula feigned shock. "The Avatar disapproves of our ideals? What a surprise."

"Our? What our? There's no our, it's just you." Naruto told her.

Azula had no retort to that. "You're right, there's nobody on my side now." Azula pulled his legs in and rested her head on her knees. "Everyone either betrays me or leaves me behind. I have no family, no friends, no allies."

Naruto gazed down at Azula. _'Her eyes, I don't know why I didn't notice them yesterday, they're like how mine used to be; eyes that know loneliness and hatred, that seek the power to prove your existence. No, there's a bleakness to them that wasn't there yesterday, like how Haku's were before he died, she's given up.'_

"So I guess you're going to capture me and turn me in to my brother?"

Naruto blinked, brought out of his musings. "What makes you say that?"

"People turning against me seems to be the biggest trend as of late." Azula admitted bitterly.

"So you're just giving up?" Naruto questioned.

Azula scoffed and turned away. "If my father couldn't beat a fully realized Avatar while he was powered by the comet, what chance do I have against one with my firebending weakened."

Naruto shook his head negatively. "I'm not a fully realized Avatar."

Azula turned to him, not expecting that piece of news.

"Yeah, the only element I mastered is wind. I've almost mastered fire, I'm decent in energy, just barely know the basics of water, and I don't know earth at all." He told her.

Azula could tell he was telling the truth, but still. "There are several things wrong with that sentence. First off; you can use hellfire but you're not a master? When I was able to use blue fire I was immediately made a master."

"My flames started out as hellfire, so that rule wouldn't apply to me."

"That's impossible. No one's flames can start out like that."

"For certain people it's possible." He sat down against a tree opposite of her. "Yugi-chan's fire started out as blue-tinted hellfire and Rōshi-sensei has always had his magma flames."

"Magma flames? What are- never mind. Next thing; your skill set doesn't make any sense. The Avatar is supposed to learn the elements in a specific order: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air."

"And you're wondering why I haven't followed that order. It's because doing so would have been inconvenient." Naruto hopped off the boulder. "You see in my time not a lot of people know what bending is, and since they don't know what it is, they don't look to see if they can bend, thus a lot of people go their entire lives not knowing that they are benders. So there aren't a lot, ten thousand maybe, if even that, who both knows how and are able to bend, and few are masters, and fewer of them are willing to teach others."

Azula sat there, frozen in shock. That there were only going to be a couple thousand benders in the future was inconceivable to her, in the Fire Nation alone there were more than a million benders.

Naruto went on, not noticing the frozen look of shock on the fire teen's face. "If I found a master who didn't mind teaching me, I stuck with them. That's why I went from wind, to fire, to water, to earth instead of the order I was supposed to go; Wind, Water, Earth, and Fire."

"You're an Air Nomad?"

"A what?" He frowned in thought before lighting up in realization. "Oh. No, I'm from the Elemental Nations."

"…That's the entire world, idiot." Azula deadpanned.

"No, that's just a continent, genius." Naruto deadpanned back. "Things are different five hundred years from now." _'Like the fact that there aren't just four nations in the world anymore.'_

"There's still the Fire Nation, right?"

Naruto scratched his cheek. "There's the Land of Fire, Hi no Kuni, it's one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries of the Elemental Nations and the country where I was born."

Azula felt faint. "I have one last question. What did you mean by energy?"

"Energybending." The blond simply answered.

"And that is?" Azula asked, having never heard the name of the art that took away her father's bending.

"The ability to bend energy. Like this." He raised his right hand that started glowing light-blue, and thrust it forward, a light-blue rope of energy flying out and wrapping around Azula's torso.

Azula looked down at the binding in shock, straining against it but the rope didn't budge.

"Time to get moving." Naruto started walking away. "Come along hime-chan." He yanked the other end of rope, which was still connected to his hand, pulling the princess after him.

Azula stumbled to her feet and frowned at the boy. "So you are turning me in." She said bitterly.

"Nope."

Azula narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion.

He turned around and smiled at her. "You still have one friend, and he'll always be on your side, dattebayo."

That she wasn't expecting. And again he wasn't lying, but that didn't mean she was going to completely trust him. But still, some hope was starting to return. "So you're offering to help me get my crown back?"

"Hell no."

Azula face faulted. She jumped up and got in Naruto's face. "I thought you were on my side!" She screamed.

He just look at her blankly. "I am on your side. But friends don't let friends become evil tyrants."

Her eye twitched.

"So you're going to stick with me until you realize that being one is wrong and you don't want to do it anymore." Naruto turned away from the fuming girl, irritating her more and hiding the troubled look on his face. _'But how am I going to convince her of that? Oni-baba has said I have a gift for "changing people's outlook on life", but I never __**tried**__ to do that, it just sort of happened.' _Naruto groaned and looked north. "We have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to do it."

"What? Where are going?" She asked.

"I need to meet up with my master. He came here with me but I guess we got separated when we first arrived. It won't be long before he'll get bored of wherever he's at and start looking for me. But I can't move as fast as I wanted to or draw attention to myself because of you." He cast a look at Azula, who huffed and turned away.

Naruto rolled his eyes and faced forward. _'Oh yeah. This is going fun.'_

* * *

Technique List

_Kusawake (Pathfinder)_: A tracking technique that allows the user to make a connection between two life forces, including their own. Very similar to clairvoyance.

_Hidō: Rensha Shindou (Fire Art: Rapid-fire Impact)_: Taijutsu. C-Rank. A fire enhanced version of _Rensha Shindou_: D-Rank. A series of extremely fast punches.

_Hidō: Karyūmure (Fire Art: Fire Dragon Swarm)_: C-Rank. The user unleashes multiple streams of dragon-shaped flames. The number of streams depends on the user. The highest recorded number of dragons used by one person is forty.

_Hidō: Ririshii Bakuhatsu (Fire Art: Gallant Detonation)_: B-Rank. The user gathers a large amount of fire and compresses them into a ball that they then throw. When it hits something or several seconds after the ball is thrown it erupts in a huge explosion. There is a Katon version of this.

_Kazedō: Daitoppa (Wind Art: Great Breakthrough)_: C-Rank. This is a relatively simple technique that creates a sudden gust of wind, but its scale varies greatly depending on the user. If used by a skilled user, it has enough destructive power to knock down a large tree. The wind from the squall can blow away all things in the user's line of sight. This is the same as the Fuuton Jutsu.

_Kazedō: Peretto Boufuu (Wind Art: Pellet Storm)_: C-Rank. Inhaling deeply, the user will fire off marble-sized shots of wind capable of piercing flesh. There is a Fuuton version of this.

_Kazedō: Tatsu Shippuha (Wind Art: Dragon Hurricane Blast)_: A-Rank. The user gathers a large amount of wind and releases it in a powerful burst. The scale of the wind generated is equivalent to hurricane force winds and is capable of destroying the landscape. There is a Fuuton version of this.

* * *

Oni-baba - Demon Granny.

**(1)- **Yeah, if you couldn't tell I was making fun of myself there.

**There are going to be a lot of OCs. Many will have bigger roles than most of the main cast of Avatar because it will be a long, long time before Team Avatar becomes a big part of this story. Unless Kishimoto introduces someone new I can use, there are going to be five or six canon Naruto characters in this story including Naruto, Jiraiya, Gaara, and someone else if she isn't confirmed dead by the time I get to introducing her.**

**Yes, a lot these bending attacks seem like jutsu, there's reason for that and I'll get into that later.**

**I know I didn't get into the red wind, I do have an explanation for it, it's one of those that sounds scientific and sounds like it could work but you know in real life it's not possible. There were several other things I also wanted to explain in this chapter, but this was just getting too long, so I'll get to all of that in the next chapter. **

**So until then enjoy this and please review.**


	3. Lessons in Bending

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender.

"Speech"

'_Thoughts'_

"**Demon/Spirit/Summon Speech"**

"_Jutsu/Attacks__"_

**I think I made Kyuubi too nice in the previous chapters. What do you think? I not a fan of those stories where Naruto and Kyuubi are instant friends but I also don't like where they just can't get along. Judging by recent chapters in the manga Naruto and Kyuubi may one day get along.**

**Strange coincidence: I found out after I wrote the second chapter that the Sharingan ancestor looks almost exactly like the image I have for the Reibaigan. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?**

* * *

Azula grumbled as she was led through a forest by the young blonde who still had her tied up with the energy rope.

They walked into a small clearing where Naruto paused. He glanced around and nodded to himself. "Yeah this place should work." Naruto turned to Azula. "We'll sleep here tonight."

Azula frowned. "You want to stop here, out in the open, when the better smarter thing to do would be to find a cave or something."

"There are no caves around here. Besides Hime-chan, why would you want to stay in a cave when you could sleep in a nice house?" Azula gave him a questioning look and he smirked before going through several hand seals ending in the snake seal. "_Mokuton: Shichūka no Jutsu (Wood Release: Four Pillars House Technique)!_"

The fire princess stood surprised as she watched wood burst out of the ground form a building. However that surprise was replaced by a feeling of underwhelming. "Is that your definition of a nice house?"

Naruto's eye twitched as he blushed.

The house in front of them looked horrible. It was uneven with one half of the house over two stories tall and the other half was barely one. Not only that but the wood didn't fit together perfectly and there were many gaps in the walls. Plus there were branches with leaves growing out the house.

"There isn't even a door." Azula commented.

"S-shut up! Do you know how hard it is to grow a house? I'd like to see you try." Naruto yelled at her.

Azula rolled her eyes and looked away. "Whatever. Just untie me now." Naruto looked at her for a moment before shrugging and releasing the technique, the rope fading into nothing. Moving her arms around, Azula walked towards the house. She lit a blue fireball above her palm that immediately turned orange, much to her irritation.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked.

"I'm going to make a door." She said.

"And burn down the house in the process."

Azula scoffed. "Oh please. I can stop the fire from spreading that much." She said as she reared her hand back.

Naruto grabbed her wrist and clasped his hand over hers, snuffing out the flame. "I also don't want a big ass hole in the wall."

"Well then how do you suggest we get in?" Azula asked.

Naruto pulled out a kunai and started spinning it by its ring. "I'll cut out a door using windbending." He slashed at the wall several times then kicked the cut part down and walked through the square shaped hole.

Azula shook her head. "Oh, but you don't want me to make a hole."

Naruto either ignored her or didn't hear her as he looked around. "Well at least I made doors in here." He said as he noticed several doors for bedrooms.

"You shouldn't have made it so big." Naruto's eye twitched and he turned to Azula, who was glancing around. "There are only two of us, there's no need for it to be this big."

Naruto shot her a dry look. He had a feeling that if he had made the house smaller she would have complained about it being too small.

Turning her gaze onto Naruto, Azula decided to ask him something that had been bothering her all day. "So, Uzumaki, seeing as how I'm stuck with you," _'for now anyways.'_ "I think I deserve to know what your plans are. Seriously, what reason would the Avatar have to travel back five hundred years in the past."

Naruto blinked blankly for a second before snapping his fingers. "That's right!" He exclaimed. "I was going to ask you before but with all of the lying and backstabbing I forgot. You're a princess; if there was a person or people causing disorder or big trouble you would have heard about it, right?"

"'Causing disorder or big trouble?' You mean rebels?"

Naruto shook his head. "No. More like people who are causing enough trouble to disrupt the balance of the world."

"The balance of the world?" Azula looked at him incredulously. "You do remember the world has been at war for the last century? That could be anybody."

"Damn. You're right. I guess that's not what they are doing then. How am I going to find them then?"

"Find who?" Azula asked.

"Well apparently there are other people from my time who travelled here and their presence is causing an imbalance in the time-space continuum or something and the spirits decided that since they're from my time and my homeland that it's my duty to bring them back instead of the current Avatar, who is already here and should be fixing the imbalances of his own time, or Kouin's, the one who let them come here in the first place!" Naruto raged. "He can do it easily, he's the freaking spirit of time for crying out loud!" He screamed to the sky. "Sometimes I really hate spirits, most of them are demanding and selfish; they do things or demand stuff for their own benefit without any regard for what it'll cost us because we're just 'lowly humans' or 'foolish mortals'."

Azula was a bit shocked to hear him say that, she had heard that the Avatar was an ally to the spirits. "Well that sounds like a big pain." The princess stated. "Are they here in the Fire Nation?"

"I don't know."

Azula sighed in annoyance. "Why are they here? You can probably start your search based off that."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, except I don't know why they're here."

"Of course you don't." Azula deadpanned. "Well who are they? That can give you a clue."

"I don't know."

"What do they look like?"

"I don't know."

"How many are there?"

"I don't know."

"You don't even know that?" Azula exclaimed. "Do you know anything about your targets?"

"…I know at least one of them is an earthbending master."

Azula stared at him in disbelief. "That's it? And you're planning on dragging me with you on this wild turkey-goose chase? How do you plan on finding these people only knowing that?"

"Oh shut up, I'll figure something out. And I- turkey-goose?" Naruto looked at her oddly before shaking his head. "Anyway, believe me, I didn't want to involve any more people than I had to but in good conscious I can't let someone who wants to, and can, start a world war just roam around. If you just find a better goal in life you won't have to hang around me anymore."

Azula snorted. The idea was almost tempting.

Naruto yawned. "Are we done talking because I haven't slept since yesterday and I'm going to bed now. Goodnight." He said as he walked into one of the rooms.

Azula watched him shut the door and realized that she hasn't slept since yesterday either plus they had been walking all day. Walking into one of the rooms, Azula frowned as she discovered it to be empty. "Am I supposed to sleep on the floor?" She called to the young ninja. There was a moment silence before his door opened and a rolled up sleeping bag flew out landing at her feet. Azula hmphed, picking up the bag and walking into her room.

Azula, like all firebenders, rose with the sun the next morning. Stretching, she decided to do something she hadn't done in months: train.

She walked outside and soaked in the sun's rays, feeling invigorated. Azula took a deep breath before settling into a firebending stance and running through a few katas. She got through the first two perfectly, although her moves were more sluggish compared to a few months ago. It was during the third kata which involved a jumping kick that she messed up when she didn't land right and fell down. Grumbling, she got up and ran through it again, getting it right this right this time.

She ran through more sets, each one harder than the last, then messed up once again during a double spin. She tried that same sequence another five times before she was able to get through it without falling, however Azula wasn't satisfied. She glared at her hand, she had released an arc of fire too low, and being the perfectionist that she was, that was unacceptable. Azula didn't know what was more frustrating; that she was messing up moves she mastered when she was 10 or that her blue fire was almost instantly turning orange.

"I guessing you're more of a technique user, right?" Azula turned to Naruto who was sitting against the house pouring water into two large cups with an amused look on his face.

"What do you mean by technique user?" She asked.

"Well judging by your performance there," Naruto chuckled as Azula's face flushed and she glared at him, "I think it's safe to say you're not much of a form type bender."

Azula looked at him confused. "What are you talking about, technique user and form type?"

Naruto blinked. "You don't know? There are two ways bending is used: through form or technique." He grabbed the cups and let out a deep breath, the water starting to steam. "Form style is bending that is executed with taijutsu-"

"Taijutsu?"

Naruto rolled his eyes and translated, "Hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, whatever. And technique style is bending that is executed with simple psychical movement and great manipulation of energy, sort like jutsu. Most people tend to be better at one than the other. Form type benders are more close-to-mid range fighters and are in better physical condition while technique types are more mid-to-long range fighters and have better chi control. Really skilled technique types can bend without any movement. They're the ones who end up mastering their element the fastest."

Azula's eyes widened at that. "Are you saying that they can bend with just their thoughts?" Naruto nodded. "Like actual attacks?" Naruto nodded again. "That's impossible."

"It is too possible." Naruto argued.

Azula scoffed. "Yeah right."

Naruto frowned at her before smirking. Out of nowhere Azula was knocked down by a gust of wind, then before she could hit the ground she was landed on a small tornado that hovered her a few inches off the ground then launched her higher into the air and was held up there by swirling wind spinning around her body. Azula panicked, wildly flailing her arms and legs around, causing her to flip upside down. Azula screamed, expecting to start falling, but after a moment of just floating there upside down Azula's panic turned into irritation, her ire growing as she heard Naruto laughing. "You have a surprisingly cute scream."

She looked up, or down, at the boy, who hadn't moved an inch. "Told you it was possible." He said. "Controlling and manipulating energy like chi or chakra is mostly mental work." Naruto told her. "Plus the more you use a technique the easier it becomes to use until it becomes as easy as breathing. At least that's what I've been told; I'm not at that level yet." Truth be told it was taking all of his concentration to pull off this little stunt; even thought he was a master his chi control wasn't all that great.

"Fine, it's possible." She said through gritted teeth. "Now put me down now!"

The wind swirling around her stopped and she fell, bouncing off a bubble of air and landing on her feet. Regaining her bearings, Azula sent a smoldering glare at Naruto. He stopped smiling and gulped nervously. "Don't do that again." Azula growled venomously.

Naruto nodded quickly. "A-alright, H-hime-chan."

She stared down at the boy, making him sweat. "W-what is it, Hime-sama?"

"So what type are you?"

Naruto mentally sighed in relief, glad she wasn't going to hurt him. "I'm a Form type." He said pridefully. "Technique types may be better the benders but we're the better fighters."

"Wait, how is that possible?" Azula asked, not being able to grasp that fact.

Naruto shrugged causing her to sigh. She decided to go on to something else she has been curious about.

"So red airbending. I've never heard of that before, but that could be because I've only met one other airbender before."

"Oh that?" "You know how fire changes color based on its temperature?" Azula nodded. "It's sort of the same thing with wind. There was… an incident when I was born that ended up with me gaining, among other things, really powerful bending, even for an Avatar. It was hard for me to control and it took me months to get it down to a level where I could safely bend in public. The wind I generate is strong and fast, fast enough to catch friction and heat up, and that's where the color comes from **(1)**." Naruto smiled sheepishly. "The first time I used red wind it was an accident during a fight where I was getting my ass kicked."

He looked at the cups and grinned. "Ramen time!" He held one of the cups up for Azula to take which she did.

She peered into the cup and raised an eyebrow. "Noodle soup for breakfast?"

Naruto paused, chopsticks just inches from his mouth and wordlessly mouthed 'noodle soup'. "Did you just call ramen _noodle soup_?" He said the words noodle soup incredulously. "What are you retarded?"

"Are you saying this isn't noodle soup?" She held up some noodles and gestured to them.

"Noodle soup wishes it could be ramen! Ramen is the food of the gods! A gift bestowed to us mortals by Kami-sama himself!" The blonde exclaimed. He shoved an angry finger in her face. "And not only do complain about it, you actually called it noodle soup!"

Azula's eye twitched and she slapped his hand out of her face. "Oh shut up." Honestly, her uncle didn't take tea as serious as this. She ate her ramen and she found that it did somewhat taste better than noodle soup, though Azula didn't feel like admitting that to Naruto right now. As she ate, something Naruto said popped into her head. "When you described the way form types fight you used the word _mainly_. You also used mainly for the way technique types fight. Why?"

Naruto slurped his noodles. "Well, form style bending is great but it's good to have some ranged attacks too and there aren't a lot of close range B-Rank or A-Rank techniques and the few that exist usually have some kind of risk to the body."

'_B-Rank and A-Rank techniques?' _Azula wondered.

"Like I said we form types prefer close range combat but eventually we learn techniques to get higher level attacks and to be able to fight at a distance and even though technique types train to bend by just manipulating their energy mentally the use of physical movement increases the speed, power, and control of their bending plus they work on their physical abilities just in case the fight is brought up close, if only to level of just being able to defend themselves long enough to get some distance. Master level benders are usually proficient in both areas of combat."

Azula nodded. That made sense. As a firebending master Azula was pretty good in both close and long range combat, though she couldn't claim she could attack anybody by just mentally willing it. _'So I guess that means I'm more of a form type.' _She thought to herself. "So since you're an airbending master that means you know some A-Rank techniques, right?"

"Windbending master and yes I do." Naruto answered.

"How about in firebending, do you know any A-Ranks there?" Azula asked. Naruto nodded as he finished his ramen. Azula leaned in and gave him a sort of sultry smile. "You wouldn't mind showing me, would you?" She asked. There was no doubt that these A-Rank techniques were the highest level of techniques. She figured that she knew just about all of them but Naruto was from the future and he probably knew some moves that haven't even been invented yet, moves that would be nice to add to her own set of techniques.

Naruto grimaced. The showoff in him wanted to showcase some of his best moves but the way Azula was smiling at him was making him uncomfortable and was turning him off of the idea of showing her. "What don't you know any? I heard you're supposed to be some kind of prodigy who mastered firebending really young."

Azula smirked arrogantly. "Yes, that is true, but I want to see what you're capable of, firebending wise. You said you haven't mastered firebending yet and I am a firebending master, maybe I can give you some helpful pointers." She lied.

Naruto frowned in thought. She had a point, but he had the feeling she wasn't being totally honest, plus her earlier performance didn't look like that of a master's. After giving it another moment of thought Naruto sighed. "I'm going to have to find a more open space; I don't want to burn the forest down."

* * *

Naruto stood on a ledge overlooking a decent sized rocky flatland and a nearby running stream. "This will work."

Behind him Azula placed a hand on her hip and waved her other one impatiently. "Whatever. Just get on with it."

Naruto's eye twitched as he growled in annoyance but he chose not to retort. "You might want to scoot back some." He said to her. Azula rolled her eyes and took two steps back. Widening his feet, Naruto closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before his eyes flew open. "_Hidō: Hirameki Inferuno (Flash Inferno)!__" _He clasped his hands together above his head and a large burst of fire erupted around him, causing Azula to cover her eyes and move further back. He thrust his clasped hands forward and the flames all shot into the flatland, engulfing the area below in a sea of flame.

'_I should have thought this through, that's going to be a pain to put out.' _Naruto thought to himself before speaking out loud. "You better be satisfied with that because I'm not doing another one." He looked back at Azula to give her an annoyed look for the snooty comment that he was sure wascoming but stopped as he saw the gobsmacked look on the older girl's face. A smile came to his face. _'And it suddenly became worth it.'_

Azula gawked at the massive inferno in front of her. What she just witnessed was unbelievable. She had learned firebending from the finest instructors of the art, learned it from her father, who until of recent events was the most powerful firebender in the world, met the most powerful firebenders alive, studied firebending inside and out, and she had never seen nor heard of a single firebender being able to produce such a massive amount of fire, except during a certain occurrence.

The day of the comet.

At Naruto's laugh she turned her gaze away from the fire and onto him. Naruto was facing her with his chest puffed out and head thrown back laughing triumphantly. "Hahahaha! That's right! I'm awesome, go on and admit it."

Azula scoffed, crossing her arms under her chest and looking away. "Yeah right."

"Oh don't try to deny that you weren't amazed. This," Naruto imitated her previous expression, "is the face of someone who saw something incredible."

Azula blushed a bit before sneering. "Don't flatter yourself. Yes the size of that was startling at first but after realizing you enhanced it with your Avatar State it's not very impressive."

"I didn't use any Avatar State!" Naruto shouted indignantly. "When I go into the Avatar State my eyes and all of my markings glow. That was just a normal _Hirameki Inferuno_."

"Normal huh." Azula said a bit shakily as she looked back at the raging fire that was now much smaller because of the clones Naruto created to put it out.

Naruto nodded while eyeing her strangely. "Are you really a firebending master?"

Azula snapped her head towards him. "Excuse me? I've been a master for almost three years now. I happen to be one of the most powerful firebenders in world, possibly the most powerful now that my father can no longer bend."

"But you thought my _Hirameki Inferuno_ was enhanced, a master would have known that was a normal A-Rank level technique." Naruto said. "And that look on your face after you saw it, I thought it was because you didn't think I was able to use an A-Rank technique, but you were actually more surprised by the technique, not me. It was like you've never seen a technique of that level before."

Azula mentally cursed for allowing herself to be so easily read. "I have seen firebending on that level before." She stated. '_Though it was during a period where firebending was enhanced almost a hundred-fold.'_ She admitted mentally.

Naruto shrugged. "Okay." Then he gave her a smug look. "But can you bend at that level?"

Azula scoffed. "If I put my mind to it. I've bent flames bigger than that." Again, it was during the comet.

"Well go on right ahead then." Naruto challenged with that irritating smug smile still on his face, making her growl.

"I don't have to prove myself to the likes of you." She said before walking away.

Naruto watched her walk away and chuckled. "That was fun." He said before jumping down to join his clones in putting out the fire.

* * *

"Say bye-bye to the house."

Azula gave the time traveler a dry look before turning to the house. "Bye." She sent a blast of fire into a wall.

"Hey!" Naruto cried as blew the fire out. Azula vaguely noticed that his wind wasn't red like it was last night. "I want this house to stay, you know, for the people who find themselves having to stay out here overnight, they can stay here and not outside."

"If that's the case then I'm doing those people a favor by burning down this monstrosity." Azula said before lighting the house on fire again. Naruto moved to put out the flames but Azula stopped him. "Did you forget that I'm a fugitive? I don't want to leave behind any trace of myself."

Naruto sighed disappointedly. "Okay. But there are better ways of getting rid of the house than potentially starting a forest fire." With a wave of his arm the house a dome of red wind rose up and engulfed the house before dying down a moment later.

Azula lowered her hands that were shielding her from the dust and glared at Naruto. "Warn me before you do something like that."

Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

Sneering, Azula looked over at the house, expecting at worst to see the roof blown off, and took a sharp intake of breath. The house was gone, there was only a pile of wood chips and sawdust where it once stood. Azula paled a bit. He had just instantly demolished the housewith just a wave of his gulped.

That wind dome was definitely lethal, but airbending, as she understood, was a style that lacked any fatal techniques. Maybe that was why he called it windbending, because it was so different. While it wasn't at the same scale as that weakened A-Rank technique, it was still pretty big and powerful, and Naruto was able use it so effortlessly and casually. '_He did say wind was the only bending art he mastered. I guess that just shows the difference of skill between his windbending and his firebending.' _

"Let's go Hime-chan. We still got a long way to travel." Naruto said, walking away.

Still dazed, Azula silently followed him.

* * *

(Several Hours Later)

Walking up a rocky mountain path, Naruto was reminded why he hated walking.

This felt like an escort mission, having to travel far at a civilian's pace. And for some reason the client was always somebody who he couldn't get along with at first. "Stop." He heard.

"What's wrong now?" He asked.

"My feet hurt." Azula said, sitting down on a rock.

Naruto shot Azula a deadpan look. "I offered to carry you."

"So you can jump around like a Rabbiroo? I don't think so. How can I trust you not to drop me or that you won't try something. I'm following you unwillingly, remember? I don't want to be tied up in your energy ropes and dragged again."

Naruto's eye twitched. Yep, just like an escort mission, only without pay. "They're energy _threads_ and be glad I don't know how to use energy chains yet; it hurts to be tied up in those."

Azula just rolled her eyes.

Naruto sat down and grumbled. If he was traveling at the pace of a ninja, Naruto could reach that island in about three days, or if he flew there, he could be there in under two.

"Where is your master exactly?" Azula questioned.

"Some island." Naruto answered.

Azula shot Naruto a deadpan look. That could be any part of the Fire Nation, a nation composed entirely of islands. "Care to be more specific."

"All I know is that it's north and it'll take at least a week to get to at the rate we're going," He then grinned. "But only two days if I carry you."

"…A week huh?"

Naruto groaned in exasperation and fell back across the rock.

Azula rubbed her feet while thinking. She had about a week to find some supporters and ditch this fool before they met up with this master of his. If she couldn't before they met, things would much more difficult for her. Naruto was powerful but he was a simpleton, outsmarting him would be easy, this master of his, however, would definitely be harder to fool plus the guy was a master, even she was at her peak Azula doubted she could defeat both of them in battle, she wasn't even sure she could beat just Naruto.

"So this master of yours, is he a firebender or a waterbender?" Azula asked.

"You sure do ask a lot of questions Hime-chan." Naruto commented.

"I don't like to travel with people I know nothing about, it's unwise." Azula explained. "So, what kind of bender is he?"

"Ero-sennin?" Naruto snorted. "He isn't a bender."

Azula blinked. "He's not a bender? Then what is he?"

'_A pervert._' Naruto thought with a roll of his eyes before answering. "A ninja."

A master ninja. Azula wasn't expecting that, but the man wasn't a master bender like she first thought and as such wasn't as powerful as one, at least in her mind. She still thought ninjas were 'cowards who strike from the shadows'. But this guy was a master and she knew well how strong a non-bender could be. "Is he any strong?"

"Are you kidding? Ero-sennin is a kage-level ninja." By Azula's blank look Naruto could tell she didn't know what he meant by that. "He's very strong. If we fought him together the two of us wouldn't stand a chance."

Azula scoffed. "A non-bender winning against benders of our caliber in a head on fight. I find that hard to believe."

Naruto shook his head amusedly. "Spoken like a person who has never seen jutsu." He stood up and dusted his pants off. "Anyway let's get moving."

Azula snorted and walked after him. "Because your jutsu is so special."

Naruto snorted back at her. "As someone who uses both bending and jutsu I have to say, jutsu is better. I mean bending is great and all, but it's only elemental manipulation. Jutsu can do that and more, much more. Of course for elemental manipulation bending is better, you have much freer control and it's not as much as a drain on your energy reserves."

Azula shot him a dry look. So his argument was jutsu is harder to use and it consumes a lot of energy.

"But then with jutsu you're not restricted to one element."

Azula faltered for a moment. "Stop right there. It's impossible to use anymore than one element, unless you're the Avatar."

"No it's impossible to _bend_ more than one element unless you're the Avatar." Naruto corrected her. "But with jutsu it's possible. Jōnin-level ninja usually can use at least two nature types." Naruto explained, not noticing Azula gaping at him. "And elemental jutsu is just one part of ninjutsu. There's also stuff like medical ninjutsu, barrier ninjutsu, space-time ninjutsu, and then there's taijutsu, genjutsu, fūinjutsu…"

Azula walked behind Naruto while listening to him talk about abilities such as casting illusions, storing items into scrolls, enhancing physical abilities, and bombs made out of paper –which he demonstrated to her– as if it wasn't a huge deal. When he got to the part about summoning giant talking animals she finally snapped. "This is insanity! None of what you've said should be possible by humans and yet-" She thought back to him creating that house, and when he showed her he could walk on walls with just his feet, and when he made a clone out of a puddle. "Just what is this chakra stuff that allows you to do this?"

Naruto groaned. Explaining all of this was making his head hurt. Explaining stuff was Sakura's thing, he was the charge-in-and-kick-ass guy. "Didn't I tell you this already Hime-chan? Chakra is an energy made by mixing physical and spiritual energy together."

"What do you mean by physical and spiritual energy?"

"Physical energy is energy from the body and spiritual energy is energy from the mind and soul." Naruto looked back at her oddly. "But shouldn't you know what spiritual energy is?"

Azula raised an eyebrow. "Should I?"

"It's half of what we use to bend."

"What are you talking about? We use chi to bend."

Naruto face faulted and turned around, blinking up at her in disbelief before squinting and asking, "And what is chi supposed to be?"

Azula smirked, feeling some satisfaction from Naruto finally being apparently clueless. "What's this? The master bender from the future doesn't even know what chi is?" She said condescending smirk. "Chi is metaphysical energy that flows throughout the body that we use to bend."

For a moment Naruto just stared at her blankly before bursting into laughter.

Azula's face reddened with anger and embarrassment as she watched the younger boy double over, clutching his stomach in laughter with tears in his eyes. "What are you laughing at!" She shouted.

Naruto stood up to start walking again, still laughing. "There's no physical energy in chi, stupid. You're a master but you don't even know what chi is?"

"I know what chi is! I said _meta_physical, not physical you idiot!" Azula screamed at him.

Naruto stopped laughing. "Oh." He tilted his head in confusion. "What's metaphysical energy?"

"It's…" Azula paused, struggling to think of the right word, "mystical energy."

Naruto also stopped and looked at her skeptically. "Mystical? You mean like magic?" A look of understanding then came to his face. "Ohh, now I get it. It's not that you're stupid, you're just from the past; you don't know stuff yet."

A tick mark appeared on Azula's head. "What is that supposed to mean?" She growled out.

The blonde backed up and raised his arms up defensively. "Calm down Hime-chan. It's just I'm from the future. There are things we invented that don't exist yet and stuff that we figured out about the world and how the body works and other sciencey smart stuff like that that you haven't yet."

Azula placed her hand on her hips challengingly. "Well, Mr. Know-It-All-Future-Boy why don't you explain to me what chi is."

"It's spiritual and natural energy." Naruto stated.

Azula blinked at the simple explanation before scowling at his answer. "There's a third energy? Natural energy, what is this one?"

"Natural energy is energy that comes from nature." Naruto explained as he started walking again. "We gather natural energy into our bodies and mix it with our spiritual energy within our chi paths where it's then released as chi.

"I see." Azula said, quickly finding a connection between that and her own knowledge of bending. "It's an outside source of energy, like the sun and how it powers firebending."

"Um, sort of." Naruto looked up thoughtfully. "The sun makes heat and heat is the biggest source for firebending. You see there are several different kinds of natural energy and each bending art uses certain kinds."

"You say that like each art uses more than one kind." Azula spoke.

"Well yeah." Naruto replied like it was obvious. "I'm not exactly sure how many types of natural energy there are but there's more than four." Naruto shrugged. "How many did you think there were?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Four." The princess lifted four fingers and started listing them off. "The sun, the moon, earth, and air; the sources of each bending art."

"None of those are natural energy Hime-chan, they're where natural energy comes from." Naruto told her.

Azula stared at Naruto. Everything she learned about bending from the finest instructors in the Fire Nation, the best and only explanations they have had for centuries, were being broken down and explained in better detail by a 13 year old boy, making those 'fine instructors' look like morons in comparison. Azula couldn't believe it. She didn't want to believe it, because that would make her a moron too for going along with those teachings for the past twelve years, and that just wasn't possible.

After a while they entered a wide rocky canyon. They walked through in silence for several minutes before Naruto suddenly stopped and started looking around, alarming Azula. "Seriously? Out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"What is it?" She asked, also looking around but not being able to spot anything.

"We're about to have some guests drop by." Naruto closed his eyes and counted every presence he felt. "5… 11… 18… 34 of them. And they've surrounded us."

Several streams of fire raced across the ground and joined together into a circle around the duo. Men came out from behind the surrounding outcrops, 34 in all.

"You have got to tell me how you do that." Azula said as she dropped into a fighting stance.

Naruto stared at the flames. "Oh come on, firebending mountain bandits? Really?"

"Oh we're more than simple mountain bandits, boy." One man said as he stepped forward. He was an older man with long graying hair that reached his mid-back and a long thin mustache.

"High General Cheng." Azula said, identifying the man.

"Princess Azula. My, this is a surprise." Cheng stated.

"General? These guys are part of the army?" Naruto asked.

Azula looked the man over. He wasn't wearing a military uniform, just simple clothing of a civilian, and his hair wasn't pulled into a topknot. She shook her head negatively. "No. The dear general here has deserted."

Cheng chuckled. "You're as sharp as always, Azula."

"So they're rebels?" Azula nodded. "Which kind of rebels are they?"

"'Which kind?' What are you talking about?" Azula asked Naruto.

"There are three different types of rebels; those who want you as Fire Lord, those who want your father, and those who want themselves." Naruto told her.

"The boy speaks the truth." Cheng spoke.

"Is that so?" Azula said. She looked at Cheng. "So who is it that you support Cheng?"

"Why, you Princess, of course." The former general bowed.

"Bullshit."

Cheng glared at Naruto.

"You were able to tell he was lying just from that?" Azula asked him.

"When people lie the rate of their heartbeat changes and I can hear the heart beating with soundbending." Naruto explained.

Azula quirked an eyebrow. "Soundbending?"

"A special skill of windbending."

Cheng growled and stood up. "You're not going to believe this boy over me are you?"

"Well actually I already knew you weren't on my side." Azula admitted. Cheng looked at her in surprise. "We've never been on such formal terms where you can address me without using my title. And when you greeted me you didn't bow, which shows not only that you're not supporting me, you're not supporting my father either, as I would still be his heir."

Cheng sighed in defeat. "Like I said, you're as sharp as always, not that it'll do you any good in this situation." He said with a smirk and gestured his men to move in.

Naruto cracked his knuckles. "Bring it on. I defeated a hundred soldiers the other night. A little over thirty will be a piece of cake."

"That was mainly due to good positioning, not your own battle prowess, so don't charge in thinking you are invincible. The conditions aren't in our favor this time." Azula hissed.

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"Those men the other night were boxed by the buildings all in one direction with no cover, unable to avoid those wide spread attacks of yours, while you were able to move freely through the ground and air. Here the enemy has us surrounded and they have the high ground while we're out in the open with no cover. Do you understand what I'm saying?" She asked him.

"Uh no?"

Azula sighed. "Try to attack and you'll be blasted from all sides. The first thing is we need to do is get out of this circle. Can you do something about that?"

Naruto looked at the men about to blast them with fire. "No problem." He replied with a cocky grin.

Cheng looked on the two teenagers get engulfed in fire and frowned. They didn't even try to defend themselves. As the flames faded, he expected to see either two charred bodies, two perfectly fine teenagers, or nothing, meaning they escaped. He wasn't expecting to see two large charred stones that weren't previously there.

Before they could begin to wonder what was going on several men were sent crashing into the ground by red gusts of wind. Startled, Cheng looked up and immediately jumped back, avoiding a blast of fire. From a ledge Azula jumped down and started attacking him. His men moved in to help but several of them were pelted with a barrage of fireballs. Four Narutos jumped out in front of them, shocking them at seeing four of the same boy, one of them with a smoking mouth. "_Hidō: Housenka no Waza (Phoenix Sage Fire Technique)._" He said.

"You guys are no longer surrounding us." Another one said in a sing-song voice.

The rebels growled and punched out fireballs at them. The Narutos swiped through them then pulled their fists back like they were going to firebend but caught them off guard at the last second by opening their fist into a palm and thrust forward, releasing shots of wind that sent four of the firebenders flying back. The other rebels regarded him in shock.

"Was that airbending?" One asked out loud.

Another one shook his head negatively. "No way, did you see it, it was red."

"Y-yeah. Plus he was firebending earlier, there's no way he can do both."

"Unless he was the Avatar."

The guy who said that was smacked upside his head. "You idiot. The Avatar is bald."

"I'm still trying to figure out how there's four of him."

"You're right, that wasn't airbending. It's called windbending." Naruto raised his right fist and red wind swirled around it. "And I am the Avatar," He raised his left fist and it erupted in crimson flames. "The Crimson Avatar." Naruto proclaimed. Behind him, one clone had double tornado fists with smoke lightly coming out of his mouth, another hovered a few shuriken above his palm with wind, and the last one was channeling his firebending though his kunai creating blades of fire, all four were smirking darkly, creating a terrifying scene for the now pale rebels.

* * *

Cheng blocked two shots of fire and retaliated with a blast of his own. Azula sidestepped it and launched two arcs of fire at the man. He created a shield of fire to block them then sent a wave of fire at her feet. Azula cut through it and shot a bolt of fire that Cheng swept aside. "Normal fire Azula? Where's that's blue fire you're so proud of?"

"Are you hoping to use it for an excuse as to why you were defeated?" Azula taunted. "Sorry but being defeated by my blue fire is an honor you don't deserve." She thrust both hands forward and launched a powerful blast of fire. Cheng raised a wall of fire to block but was still pushed back from the force. Azula kept him further off balance by shooting quick, weak bursts of fire at his feet that sent him stumbling back then shot a stronger blast at his chest that Cheng was able to block but was knocked to the ground.

Azula fired another shot at his downed form, intending to finish him off, but Cheng kicked off a blast that intercepted her shot. The ex-general flipped to his feet and started punching out fireballs at her, forcing Azula onto the defensive.

* * *

A Kage Bunshin redirected a stream of fire to the side and blasted the man who fired it back. Three more men came up and hurled fireballs at him but the clone easily blocked and fired at them with blasts from his hands and mouth.

A fireball from behind almost ended its existence but another clone jumped in and cut through the flames with his fire sword and took out the attacker.

"Thanks." The first clone said as they moved together back to back.

"Don't mention it."

The third clone landed next to them. "There's something weird about these guys' firebending."

"You noticed it too?" The second clone commented as he deflected a fireball with his sword.

The first clone frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you think their attacks are a little too weak?" The second clone asked him.

The first clone ducked underneath a fireball and charged forward, wind swirling around his wrist. "_Kazedō: Senpūken (Whirlwind Fist)!_" He buried his wind enhanced fist into a rebel's gut. The man let out a pained scream as he was sent spiraling into several of his comrades. "Isn't it just because they're weak physically?"

The second clone shook his head. "There's more to it than that." He chopped through another fireball. "It's the fire itself. It's like… there's not much there."

The third clone nodded. "Yeah, like there's something missing. I've been able to block their fire with wind without much trouble."

"Are you serious?"

"No way."

Four rebels came up and fired off streams of fire. "I'm serious. Watch." The clone created a barrier of wind. The other clones were expecting the fire to feed on the wind, grow, and consume the wind barrier so they were surprised that when the flames hit they were held back.

The second clone blinked. "What the hell?"

"That's what I said." The third clone told them.

"Does the boss know?" The first clone asked.

"Well if he doesn't he will now." The third clone dispelled the first clone by slicing him with a wind blade, shocking the second clone.

"Dude!"

The third clone shrugged. "What? I figured it out, why should I be dispelled. Plus he took down the least amount of guys out of four of us."

* * *

Azula dove out the way of a fireball then from her crouched position fired firebolts from her fingers. Cheng swiped away each shot and threw his own bolt. Azula rolled away and prepared to fire but was forced to roll away again as a whip of fire struck where she just was.

With a whip in each hand Cheng continued to lash her, forcing Azula to focus on avoiding being struck. In mid-roll Azula suddenly spun on her back, performing a sweeping kick and unleashing a ring of fire that forced the whips away.

Azula pushed herself up to her feet and looked at Cheng with a neutral gaze that hid her anger. She recognized that last move she used as one of the more successful moves Zuko used against her in their Agni Kai, which she hated thinking about. She was also angry about how equal her and Cheng seemed to be, neither one had yet to score a solid hit on one another. Azula knew a few months ago defeating a person on Cheng's level wouldn't have been too difficult for her. Was she this much weaker without her blue fire? Or was it muscle atrophy from being chained to a bed for two months?

"You truly are skilled. Men more than twice your age haven't given me such a challenge." Cheng admitted.

Azula scoffed. If only he knew.

"But you might want reconsider using your blue fire if you hope to win." Cheng told her.

"Stop thinking so highly of yourself Cheng." Azula replied.

Cheng growled. "You fool! Have you forgotten your situation? Even if it does look like you're going to win, my men will step in."

Azula briefly looked to the left, her eyebrows jumping before calmly turning back to Cheng.

"You never had a chance in the first place!" Cheng continued. "This fight was just for my entertainment and could be ended anytime at my leisure."

"Are you sure about that?" Azula asked, jerking her thumb to the left.

Cheng looked over and felt his jaw go slack. Most of his men were unconscious; all of them bruised, battered, and tied up. They were gathered in front of a boulder, on which Naruto was sitting crossed leg on watching them.

"What foolishness is this! How could you let yourselves be defeated by one child?" Cheng screamed.

Naruto glared at him. "Hey man, I'm awesome!" He said in their defense, as if that would explain everything.

Azula smirked at the rebel leader. "I guess you didn't factor in that you would be fighting an Avatar."

"Avatar? What are you talking about? That's not the Avatar."

"Well he's not Avatar Aang, he's Avatar Naruto. It's a long story that I unfortunately won't be able to finish telling before I finish your life." Azula formed a fireball and stalked menacingly towards Cheng.

The older firebender looked at her fearfully and took a step back before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Cheng looked at Azula with a calm expression that she narrowed her eyes at. _'What is he planning?'_

Cheng widened his stance and swung his arms in wide arcs, electricity trailing from his extended fingers.

'_Since when could he can do that?'_ Azula thought in alarm.

Naruto stood up with wide eyes. _'That's lightning. And with big movements like that it's going to be-'_

"There it is. The ultimate technique of firebending that only the grandmasters able to use." Naruto heard one of the rebels say.

Naruto didn't like the sound of that as he watched the ex-general complete the second arc. Naruto looked at Azula and freaked out because she just standing there. "What are you doing, move!" He yelled, rushing towards her.

Seeing as there was no cover anywhere near her to go behind, Azula waited until right before he fired to move out the way. She feinted to the left, but Cheng didn't fall for it and directed his to the right. Azula, however, knew Cheng wouldn't fall for the feint and went neither left nor right; instead she just dropped to the ground where she stood.

She watched the lightning sail past her and destroy a boulder. Picking herself up and dusting her clothes off, Azula regarded the man coolly. "I wasn't aware you knew that technique."

"Yes well I only just recently learned it after the passing of the comet."

"With you that makes six people who can generate lightning." Azula stated.

"Five people actually." Cheng corrected. "You, the Dragon of the West, General Yujin, General Wu Qiang, and myself. Your father isn't a firebender anymore, remember." He reminded her with a cruel grin.

Azula glared at him. "I was debating sparing you; a man of your talents would have been very valuable to have, but I don't have the patience right now to make you obedient. And you may be able to use the lightning generation technique but you haven't perfected it." She started circling her arms in wide arcs.

Cheng growled but quickly calmed himself and started to do the same. Azula finished the process first and shot a bolt at him. Cheng was able to release his own bolt that struck Azula's, but the resulting explosion happened much closer to Cheng than Azula and he was thrown back.

Groaning, Cheng looked up and was just barely able to dodge another bolt of lightning. Rolling to his feet Cheng shot a bolt at Azula. She jumped over it with a fire-propelled jump and stopped his attempt to create lightning by forcing to avoid a blast of fire. Landing on a boulder, she and Cheng started to generate more lightning when someone started laughing hysterically, breaking their concentration.

They turned towards Naruto who was sitting on the ground, clutching his stomach in laughter.

Noticing the two combatants looking at him, Naruto tried to compose himself. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go on." He burst into another fit of laughter.

"What are you laughing at?" Azula asked him irritably.

"No it's just… the two you look like retards." Naruto fell on his side and started laughing again.

Shocked, Azula and Cheng gaped at him for a moment before turning red in anger and embarrassment while glaring at him.

"Oh come on. The two of you are swinging your arms around like monkeys but are only shooting little bolts of lightning. That's hilarious." Naruto explained to them. He rolled his eyes when he saw them glare at him. "What? If you don't want to look stupid then just shoot lightning normally."

Seriously, When Cheng shot that bolt of lightning Naruto had face faulted. That was not what he was expecting. He grew even more confused when Azula did the same thing. But it quickly became amusing as they kept doing it over and over.

"We are shooting lightning normally fool. This is the only way to shoot lightning. There's nothing funny about it." Cheng growled at him, angry that this boy was laughing at his most powerful technique.

Naruto gave a weak chuckle. "Shut up. He's not serious, is he Hime-chan?"

Azula nodded. "Lightning generation is the ultimate technique of firebending."

The smile on Naruto's face dropped. "Dear lord. You're right it's not funny; it's sad." He claimed. "Your ultimate technique is a single bolt of lightning that you can only use by going through big, funny looking methods."

"Those funny looking methods are us separating our yin and yang energies then releasing the energy from them colliding back together, something I doubt a child like you can even comprehend, much less do." Cheng sneered at him.

Naruto was silent for a moment before speaking. "I didn't exactly get all of what you just said but, except for the yin energy, nothing you just said has anything to do with lightning. In fact I don't even think what you just said is even possible."

The two firebenders blinked at him blankly before Cheng sneered. "Right. Like I'm supposed to listen to a boy tell me the way we use a technique known only by grandmasters is wrong."

Naruto looked at him incredulously. "Grandmasters? For that? Damn, the firebenders here really do suck. Lightning is only a mid-level skill in my time."

Cheng frowned, not understanding what he meant by 'my time', while Azula gaped at him. "Mid-level?" she squeaked.

Naruto shrugged. "Maybe not even that. I know a clan of firebenders who only knows how to bend lightning. There are plenty of firebenders who are better with lightning than they are with fire. Hell I'm better with lightning than I am fire."

"How is that possible? You use hellfire!"

"It's the weakest form of hellfire! Huh… That has always been used against me in arguments before."

Cheng looked at the boy who was sprouting nonsense and the girl clearly buying it and decided they were both crazy. He started up another bolt of lightning, catching the attention of the two teens.

Azula prepared to jump behind the boulder but watched as Cheng fired the bolt at Naruto.

Not expecting the attack and being closer to Cheng, Naruto knew he wouldn't be able to dodge – but then he didn't need to. Almost effortlessly, Naruto backhanded the bolt away, it striking one of the boulders to his left.

Cheng stood there, gawking at him with his mouth wide open. Azula was in the same state, trying to process what she just witnessed. Lightning, the most powerful technique of firebending and the technique that there was no defending against, besides moving out the way or putting something between you and it, was just swatted aside like a spider-fly.

"So," Azula started after a moment, "how is lightning done?" Asking this kid to explain a different way of lightning generation was like was admitting every known expert and master of firebending, past and present, were wrong.

Naruto groaned at having to explain something else again. He wasn't a teacher damn it. He absently glanced at Cheng and slowly gave the man a dark grin, sending a shiver up his spine. Payback is a bitch. "There are three methods of lightningbending."

Dear Agni, there are three different ways.

Naruto held up a finger. "The first method is to manipulate the bioelectricity in the body." He pointed his finger at Cheng. "_Raidō: Rakurai (Lightning Art: Thunderbolt)._" A bolt of lightning fired from his finger and flew right by the man's head. Instead of just striking the ground and ending there the bolt continued to cut through the ground, craving a groove all the way up the canyon wall. "It's the only method that uses an internal source of lightning."

It was the most powerful bolt of lightning Azula had ever seen and it wasn't even forked. But maybe that was why it was so strong; a normal bolt of lightning focused into one concentrated beam. Raku-whatever-he-called-it was truly an amazing technique.

"_Raidō: Raihadōha (Lightning Surge Wave)!__"_

But compared to that, it was a joke.

Cheng barely jumped out of the way of the lightning wave. That's right wave, not a bolt; a _wave._ Looking over he could see _balls_ of lightning were coming at him. Chang moved about frantically dodging the balls, bolts, and waves.

The scene sort of reminded Azula of how she 'played' with the turtleducks in the palace pond when she was younger. And she could tell, like her back then, Naruto wasn't really trying to hit Cheng.

Naruto took a second to listen to Cheng's frightened screams with a satisfied grin before continuing. "The second method is to gather and manipulate the electricity that's in the air." Naruto put his hand out as lightning started to gather from the air to form a ball of lightning larger than his head. "_Raidō: Ikazuchi Shougekidan (Thunder Crash Bomb)._"

The ball shot forward at a speed Cheng couldn't dodge. Desperate and acting, not thinking, he created a wall of fire hoping it would do something. The ball of lightning impacted with the wall, creating an explosion that sent Cheng flying backwards. He bounced on the ground several times before sliding to a stop. He shakily picked himself up, he was hurt but the wall had saved him from being electrocuted.

Glaring up he saw Naruto seemingly going through the motion for lightning generation, lightning trailing from his hands, but then he raised his hand above his hand. Cheng frowned in confusion before seeing what he was doing. _'Are you kidding me?_' he mentally cried as he rolled out the way of a lightning whip.

Azula looked on as Cheng narrowly dodged the whips, actually getting struck a few times. But besides the pained yells and him being singed a bit, Cheng seemed fine. "So not only can control the lightning's form, he can also control the lightning's power. He's really bending lightning, not just shooting it." Maybe it would be worthwhile to stick with him for a while.

"Hey, Hime-chan."

Azula focused on Naruto.

"Remember how I told you that the friction from wind can create heat?"

"Uh, yeah…" Azula trailed, unsure where he was going with this.

Wind started to swirl around Naruto's fist. "Well heat isn't the only thing friction creates." The miniature tornado crackled with electricity.

Azula slowly shook her head in disbelief. He was not about to do what she thought he was.

"The final method is to use the wind to generate enough friction to create a static charge." All he did is clench his fist and multiple bolts of lightning flew forward from the wind.

Once again the only thing Cheng could do was move the hell out of the way.

Naruto sighed. This was fun at first but now it quickly became pathetic, he was starting to feel like a bully. It was time to end this.

He raced forward at an incredible speed with his arm pulled back, static electricity gathered around his fist. "_Raidō: Raimeiken (Thunder Fist)!__"_ Naruto's electrified fist slammed into Cheng's face and sent him back. Cheng gave a silent scream of pain as he was electrocuted before passing out.

Naruto shook his head at the downed rebel leader before looking up at Azula. "I hoped you enjoyed that because that was the last thing I'm explaining… for the rest of the week!"

Azula stared at him with bugged out eyes. "You bent lightning… with airbending." She squeaked.

"_Wind_bending." Naruto stressed. "How hard is it to remember that?"

Azula nodded dumbly. "Right. Windbending. You bent lightning with… windbending." Her eyes rolled back into her head as she passed out.

Naruto winced as she fell off the boulder and hit the ground. "She's going to feel that when she wakes up." He went over and picked her up piggyback style. "Well she can't tell me I can't carry her now." He looked over at the beaten soldiers once more before sprinting out of there.

* * *

Technique List

_Hidō: Hirameki Inferuno (Flash Inferno)_: A-Rank. The user builds up a large amount of heat energy then releases it all at once as a massive wave of fire. It normally takes some time to gather the necessary amount of energy to use this technique. It also takes a good amount of control to be able to direct such a large amount of fire.

_Hidō: Housenka no Waza (Phoenix Sage Fire Technique)_: C-Rank. This technique creates a volley of small fireballs, which are sent flying in an unpredictable manner assaulting the enemy. In addition, the flames are controlled one by one with chi, so avoiding them all is extremely difficult. Same as the Katon version.

_Kazedō: Senpūken (Whirlwind Fist)_: C-Rank. The user forms a small twister around their wrist to increase the power of their punch. Should the target dodge, the force of the wind would knock them back, if not wound them. There is a Fūton version of this.

_Raidō: Rakurai (Lightning Art: Thunderbolt)__:_ C-Rank. The user fires a concentrated bolt of lightning. There is a Raiton version of this.

_Raidō: Raihadōha (Lightning Surge Wave)_: C-Rank. Creates a large blast of lightning. There is a Raiton version of this.

_Raidō: Ikazuchi Shougekidan (Thunder Crash Bomb)_: B-Rank. Lightning is concentrated and compressed into a ball that is then thrown. When it hits something it results in large electrical explosion that may be strong enough to incinerate a person.

_Raidō: Raimeiken (Thunder Fist)_: C-Rank. The user coats their fist with lightning for an electrically charged punch.

* * *

**(1): **You see? Doesn't that sound like it's possible even though we know it's not? It's not just red to be red. I don't like that. I even have good explanation for the hellfire.

**Before people try to complain and dispute let me explain now the difference between chi and sage chakra.**

**Chi is the mixture of spiritual and natural energy that runs through the chi paths.**

**Sage chakra is the mixture of physical, spiritual, and natural energy that runs though chakra coils.**

**Sages have to stay still to use natural energy because they're balancing three energies instead of two and natural energy doesn't flow through chakra coils naturally like it does through chi paths. At least in this story it doesn't.**

**I have yet to see a story can airbenders can bend lightning! Unless someome tells me otherwise I am the first and I made it plausible. **

**I'm not really loving the form type technique type. That's probably not going to stay, I want to find something better.**

**Time traveling troublemakers. I know it sounds kind of lame and random but here me out. For each series the level of strength for characters are different. I believe from strongest to weakest for the series I read/watch, and many may not agree with me, goes like this:**

**Dragonball Z**

**Bleach**

**One Piece**

**Naruto/Fairy Tail (Though I'm starting to lean more towards Fairy Tail)**

**Yu Yu Hakusho**

**Man**

**Avatar: The Last Airbender**

**Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple**

**That's just my opinion. There are two factors that decide this decide this for me: The amount of destruction to the surrounding area during a fight and how much damage can fighters take before passing out.**

**For a people who fight using the surrounding elements there's not a lot of damage done. I think the worst was during The Chase when the entire town caught on fire (Avatar Roku going into the Avatar State and starting that volcano does not count. Neither does anything that happened during the comet.) **

**And Avatar characters cannot take hits. How many times did characters get knocked out from getting thrown through or slamming into things? **

**With how strong this Naruto is there is going to be nobody from the Avatar universe who can put up a good fight, except maybe Aang. I planning on pulling a One Piece and have the strong characters be able to defeat hundreds of soldiers single handedly. Eventually Azula, Toph, and others will be among the people able to do this.**

**These time travelers will make good fights but that's not the only reason why they're here. There is a reason ****nobody**** will see coming. And nobody will be able to guess how many people there are here, won't even get close. **

**I also want to say this: No one has come close to identifying the mystery female who may or may not be dead. People are thinking too much on recent Naruto events. Remember the time skip hasn't happened yet.**

**Man this was a long ass Author's Note.**

**Hope you enjoyed, hope I write faster, and hope you review.**


	4. The Sunken City

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender**

* * *

"For the last time, no!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

"But-"

"Noooo."

"I have to learn proper lightningbending."

"You don't have to learn, you want to."

Azula shook her head. "Oh no I have to learn. I can't go on knowingly using that technique the wrong way. You yourself said it looks foolish."

Naruto chuckled to himself and nodded. "Yeah it does."

"Exactly. Plus learning lightningbending would give me an edge over my pursuers."

"If any pursuers come I'll kick their ass." Naruto punched the air a few times for effect.

"And what if you're not around, then what?" Azula questioned.

"…Why wouldn't I be around?"

"Just teach me!" She screamed at him, losing her patience

Naruto groaned and rubbed his neck awkwardly. "I don't think I'm the right person to teach you."

"Why?"

"Because the only way I know how to teach you is the way I learned and as tempting as it is I wouldn't feel right beating you into the ground." He told her, making Azula pause.

"I'm sorry?"

"My grandma, the evil oni-baba, had me trained with the idea that the best way of learning a technique was by experiencing it, which meant I got the crap kicked out of me everyday." Naruto sounded bitter when he said that. "It was one of her answers to the problem of me only being able to train for small periods of time. That and all of those intense, bizarre, and painful 'training methods' she and all of my bending masters put me through." As he said this a dark cloud formed over his head and he started to slump a bit. "Just about every technique I know I learned by getting one safe demonstration before it got used on me repeatedly until I could counter it and perform it."

Azula blinked. "Wow. Your grandmother seems a bit extreme."

Naruto turned to her with a twitching eye. "A bit?" He started stalking towards her. "You have no idea. Try being thrown in the middle of a blizzard alone for a month with nothing but the clothes on your back. Try being stranded in the desert for month with just one little canteen of water. Or learning how to fly by being thrown off a cliff, three different times. Learning to walk on water while heaving a boulder over your head."

By now he was in her face with a crazed look in his eye, forcing Azula to walk backwards. "Learning how to burn through metal by being tied up in chains while inside a burning building. Keeping a candle lit for 24 hours, which is hard enough during normal conditions, but damn near impossible during a snowstorm! Blocking lightning with a lightning rod attached to your back so that if you try to dodge you'll still get struck. Creating an energy shield that won't shatter from the force of several explosive notes! I nearly died you crazy old hag!" Naruto suddenly screamed to the sky.

A bit blue in the face, Azula stared at him with a sweat drop. '_What the hell kind of training is that? It sounds more like some sick form of torture.'_

Naruto deflated. "You know I still haven't completed that candle exercise yet." He shook his head and turned towards her. "Anyways do you see why you wouldn't want to train under me?"

"I admit, I'm a lot more hesitant than I was before." Azula said. "But it's not like I have any other options."

Naruto sighed and started walking again.

Azula moved after him until she was alongside him. "You don't understand the significance of this. Lightningbending is something that was said to be impossible. The most we were able to do was release and guide lightning, not control it like you can."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "You can't control your lightning?"

"No."

Naruto cringed. That was dangerous. "You should really stop using lightning then. Without any control it could backlash and possibly kill you."

Azula winced, paling a little. "And that is why you should teach me. I can't promise to do that, there may be a time when I need to use lightning; it is my trump card after all."

Naruto huffed. "Fine. Maybe I'll teach you something. Just stop using lighning until then, alright."

Azula nodded, accepting that would be the best she would get out of him for now. In the short amount of time she has spent with the boy, Azula has learned several things about him that irritated her, but the thing she hated the most about Naruto was that he wasn't afraid of her, he was a lot stronger than her and they both knew it, so intimidation by force was out. As was using her title as Princess as it didn't hold as much power with the word fugitive in front of it and even so Azula had the feeling he wouldn't care about something like that.

So she couldn't use fear, that was okay, she had other methods of manipulation, like using her natural charisma, though he was cancelling that out with his own gift of ticking her off and causing her to snap at him, which has already happened several times today. She had noticed her control over her anger slipping and yet that seemed to be the only time he was actually scared of her, when she was genuinely angry.

After another hour of walking Azula's stomach growled. She blushed and frowned down at it then gazed at Naruto who was staring back at her with squinted eyes for several moments before grinning. "I'm glad I'm not the only one hungry. Time for a ramen break." He declared happily before digging into his pack.

"No, I'm tired of ramen." Azula said.

"Tired of ramen?" Naruto frowned at her. "You don't know good food when you taste it."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Let's just have something else."

"Well the other only thing I have to eat are ration bars."

Azula grimaced. Those things tasted like wood. "I wonder if there a city nearby?"

Looking up from his bag Naruto spotted a large rectangular object up ahead. "What's that?"

Gazing at what he was referring to Azula almost laughed at her good fortune. "It's a notice board, which means there is a city nearby." She walked up to it and looked it over for directions while Naruto went to another side. "Just a couple of miles that way." She pointed to the west. "And lucky us they are having their Fire Day festival today so we'll be able to blend in easier. Come on."

Naruto made to move after her but something on the board caught his attention. "Hey, look at this, it's a picture of me."

Azula spun around. "What?"

"Yeah. And look, there's one of you too."

Azula came over and snatched it off the board. She looked it over, glaring and gritting her teeth as she read before burning it to a crisp, shocking Naruto.

"What's your problem? You didn't like your picture?"

"You idiot, those are wanted posters." She explained to him.

"Wha- Really? That means there's a bounty on my head?" Naruto turned back to his poster then smiled. "Hell yeah! I'm awesome, dattebayo! I haven't even been here a week and I've got a bounty!"

"You're excited about this?" Azula asked incredulously.

"Hell yeah. What does it say? I can't read it."

Azula looked at him. "You don't know how to read?"

Naruto blushed. "I know how to read, I just don't know how to read Mandarin. I can speak the language, not read it."

"You speak multiple languages?" She asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Of course," Naruto answered. "I'm the Avatar, if I'm going to bring balance to the world I have to know the language of each land. So far I know my native language of Japanese, Mandarin, and a little bit of English my friend Temujin taught me."

Azula just made a small sound of acknowledgement at the new piece of information she learned about the future. '_So each land has its own language.' _It sounded weird to her as the entire world currently spoke the same language, the only difference was people from each nation had different accents.

She looked at the poster and read out loud. "_Wanted: Crimson Avatar. Crimes include aiding the fugitive Princess Azula, attacking military soldiers, and causing extensive damage to the town of Huangjin Huo. Is a master firebender who can bend red and black flames and an airbender who can bend red-colored wind. Also has the ability to create copies of himself. Criminal is highly dangerous." _Azula frowned._ "_How did they find out about your clone technique? The military shouldn't even know about you being the Avatar or that 'Crimson Avatar' title. The only ones who would know that are those Black Fire Order soldiers." She was silent for a moment. "Were they captured or did they send this out themselves? The Fire Lord's seal isn't on here so that is a possibility."

"Ah who cares." The young time traveler remarked as he took his bounty poster down. "It's out and there's nothing we can do about that. All we can do now is not get captured." Tucking the poster in his shirt, Naruto started walking away. "Now let's go into town and get something to eat."

Azula gazed at his smiling face before shaking her head, a small grin on her face. '_Such a simple easygoing kid. It's annoying yet almost amusing.'_

* * *

"The 'Crimson Avatar'. Seriously?" Mai stared down at the wanted poster. "I know a lot of officers lie to cover up their incompetence but Wong couldn't come up with something more believable than this?"

Zuko grunted as he tossed bread to the turtleducks. "I don't know. All I have to go on is that, Wong's report of what happened, and whole bunch of prisoners he claims are from the Black Fire Order."

"Aren't they a myth?" Mai asked.

"Supposedly." Zuko answered. "Those prisoners all confessed to being rebels, but deny being from the Black Fire. And some of them actually confirmed this kid's existence."

"Oh come on. A kid who can bend red and black fire, bend red wind, and make copies of himself? For Agni's sake the picture doesn't even look real; yellow hair and whisker marks? Why not add wings while you're at it." Mai remarked.

Zuko snorted.

"So where's Wong now?" Mai asked.

The Fire Lord scoffed. "He's still off after Azula and the prestige he'll gain for capturing her. And a bunch of the more 'ambitious' officers are out doing the same thing. Azula's become this big prize to them, like how Aang was months ago."

"How did the council react to all of this?" Mai inquired.

Zuko tossed another piece of bread in the pond. "They're furious Wong sent these out without running it by us first. Not only did he announce Azula's escape to the public with these but he's making it sound like she has an Avatar working for her, like that's not going to cause some kind of panic."

"They're worried about that?" Mai sounded skeptical.

"Well I am." Zuko admitted. "They're more worried about how foolish we'll sound by suggesting there's another Avatar."

Mai looked down at the poster again. "A second Avatar? Yeah that does sound stupid."

Zuko laid back into the grass and stared up into the tree. "I just want this whole Azula thing finished soon, but knowing my sister that's not going to happen."

"Who knows, if this kid is real then he should be easy to spot with features like his." Mai said to him

* * *

"Here are your orders miss." The cook placed two trays of food down.

A young brown haired girl picked them up. "Thanks."

She walked to a table and set one of the trays down in front of the older girl sitting across from her. "Here you go, sis."

Azula rolled her eyes. "You don't have to call me that all the time." She took a bite of her roast duck and noticed Naruto staring at her. "What?"

"Is that enough of a disguise?" Naruto asked. "You didn't really do much to change your appearance."

"Well I can't do anything like change my gender," Naruto looked down at his henge, a long dark brown haired, gold eyed, girl his age wearing a white long sleeved shirt, a sleeveless dark red dress, maroon pants, and sandals. "Or anything drastic like that without it being permanent or drawing attention to myself, neither of which I want."

"Okay," Naruto saw her point, however "But still, all you did was let your hair down and take my only pair of sunglasses." He pouted, which as a girl looked very cute.

Azula smirked and peered at her reflection off her glass of juice. "One small accessory and I'm completely unrecognizable. They're less conspicuous than a cloak and they look cooler too."

Naruto sighed and dug into 'her' komodo sausage. "…Not bad. Still, it's no ramen." Rolling her eyes, Azula took another piece of roast duck. As she ate she overheard several men speaking.

"It's true; the whole town is gone."

"What do mean gone? It was destroyed?"

"No, it's gone; it disappeared. It was nothing but a large piece of land when I got there. No people, no buildings, just these weird square ditches, like as if all of the buildings were scooped out of the ground."

"*scoff* I don't buy it, you probably got lost and went to the wrong place."

"No wait, I heard the same thing happened to another town not too far from here. Gone, as if it never existed."

"Oh come on, how does an entire town just disappear?"

"Maybe the spirits are angry about the war and are dragging the Fire Nation to the Spirit World town by town."

"Why would they start to attack us after we stopped the war instead of during it?"

Azula shook her head and stopped listening to their nonsense. Once they finished their meal Azula grabbed Naruto and told 'her' they were going shopping.

"Hey just because I look a girl doesn't mean I like to go clothes shopping."

To his surprise Azula didn't take him to any clothing stores. She dragged him around town getting tents, a sleeping bag for herself and as much food and water as she thought they could carry. When he sealed the stuff in some scrolls, Azula started to drag him back to buy more but Naruto reminded her he already had some supplies and that they should save their money. Azula agreed, remembering that she wasn't rich anymore.

Azula was currently looking over a few maps, with Naruto peering from behind her. "What's that a map of?"

"The Fire Nation." Azula glanced at 'her'. "Where is your master at?" She moved over so he get a better look.

"Um…" Naruto ran 'her' finger over the map, trying to find it before shrugging. "I don't know. Where are we?" She moved 'her' finger more to a southern island. "…Yeah, actually I'm not very good at reading maps, so…"

"So you don't know." Azula deadpanned.

Naruto laughed sheepishly and turned to another map. "What is this a map of?"

Azula briefly looked at it. "It's a world map."

Naruto blinked. "Really? These are the old four nations." He looked back at the map. "Okay, so if this is the Fire Nation, then this," 'She' pointed to the giant light green continent "Is the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes are here in the North and South Poles, I remember that. …I thought the Air Temples were supposed to be in the corners of the world? There's nothing but ocean there." Azula sweat dropped when she saw Naruto was looking for the temples at the actual corners of the map. Shaking her head, she pointed the Air Temples out to 'her'. "It's weird that places so far away from each other are considered to be of the same nation." Naruto said, referring to the Air nomads and Water Tribes. "I didn't even know people could live in the North and South Pole."

Azula snorted. "That's right. They live out there in that frozen wasteland like the savages they are."

"If it's a frozen wasteland, why did you want to conquer it?" 'She' asked her.

"If we didn't capture it, it would be a place where fugitives could be free to hide out and where a resistance could gather, plus the Northern Water Tribe would serve as a great location for a prison for earthbenders and the Southern Water Tribe a prison for firebenders." That was what her father told her when she asked him that same question years ago.

"I see." Naruto gave her a short smile then awkwardly turned away from her. _'She wants to turn an entire civilization into a couple of prisons. Wow, that's …evil.' _

"So no one lives there anymore?" Azula asked.

Naruto shrugged. "Not that I know of."

Azula stared at the henged boy then looked down at the world map. "So you couldn't tell this was a map of the world." It was more of a statement than a question. Mentally debating whether or not to ask this next question, she decided to just go for it. "You said the four nations don't exist in your time anymore. What happened to them?" Ever since he told her she hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. Though there was a part of her that didn't want to know, she figured if the worst were to come, with foreknowledge, she would be able to find a way to stop it.

Naruto rubbed 'her' neck and laughed sheepishly. "History isn't my strong suit either."

Azula sighed exasperatedly. "So you don't know."

Naruto shook 'her' head. 'She' hesitated before speaking. "But even if I did, I don't think it would be a good idea to tell you. I shouldn't have even told you about the four nations not existing anymore."

Azula's brows furrowed. "Why not?"

"Because telling you could change events that could affect the time stream and alter the future." Naruto explained to her. "At least that's what happens in movies and manga."

"I think the presence of you and your other future pals are already doing that." Azula remarked.

"Maybe they are but I'm not, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do."

"_You want me to what?" Naruto exclaimed._

"_We need you to travel back in time and retrieve the people there who are from this era." Spoke a white humanoid tiger with black stripes and blue eyes. The being wore black pants and a sleeveless green Chinese shirt._

_Naruto stared at the spirits gathered in front of him, which included some of his past lives, in disbelief. "Why do I have to do that? I thought it was the Avatar's duty to maintain the balance of the world, not play time cop."_

_Another spirit, female and more humanoid in appearance, answered. "Their presence in the past is starting to cause shifts in the space-time continuum that's affecting the world."_

_Naruto frowned at them._ _"Again; why do __**I**__ have to do that? Why doesn't the Avatar already there send them back if they're causing problems in his time?"_

"_Well most of those people there are from the Elemental Nations." An aged bald man with an arrow tattoo on his head wearing orange robes said. "But the main reason we're asking you is because according to the events of time it was Avatar Naruto Uzumaki who brought these people their proper places." He explained._

"_I don't_ _care, I'm not going!" Naruto crossed his arms stubbornly._

_A man with long spiky grey hair placed his hands on the young boy's shoulders. "What are you complaining about? We're telling you do something that you're guaranteed to accomplish. You can go without worry because you already know you're going to succeed."_

_Naruto blinked at that, realizing he had a point. He knew if he went he was going to come back and he didn't have to worry if he was going to fail or not. But still…_

"_And," the redhead continued, "I can tell you that the person who teaches you earthbending happens to be one of these people."_

_Any reservations he had disappeared with that statement as Naruto was now bouncing on his toes looking at his past with excitement. "So when do I leave?" Naruto anxiously asked. _

"That's what persuaded you to travel back five hundred years in time; an earthbending master." Azula deadpanned. "You don't even know how long you'll be gone. You could be here for ten, twenty years and they didn't tell you if you'll be coming back in perfect condition either."

"What do you mean by that?"

Azula shrugged. "Oh nothing. It's just people can survive losing an arm, or a foot, or some other battle crippling injuries." She commented innocently.

Naruto paled a bit before shaking 'her' head, clearing away any bad thoughts. "I'm not worried. Spirits may be callous, but my past lives aren't, they wouldn't send me here if that was going to happen. And you don't know how hard it's been for me to find a master earthbender who won't try to kill me on sight." Naruto explained.

Azula raised an eyebrow. "Kill you on sight? Let me guess: you're at war and the enemy wants to kill the Avatar and you need to master the other elements to be able to stop them."

"No, the last war ended before I was born." Naruto said. "But relations between us and Iwa, the village where most earthbenders in the Elemental Nations live, aren't all that great. Plus it doesn't help that I look like my father."

"What's wrong with looking like your father?"

A cross between a proud grin and a cocky smirk spread on Naruto's face. "During that war my dad was what you may call a… badass."

"Badass?" Azula repeated. "What, he disobeyed his superiors?"

"No, he wasn't a bad boy, he was a badass; badass means awesome." Naruto clarified. "He was so awesome, took out so many ninja, there was a flee on sight order placed on him."

Azula dropped the maps she was holding. "A flee on sight order?" She stared at Naruto in open mouthed shock. In the entirety of the hundred year war there hadn't been a single person who was deemed dangerous enough to warrant such an order, not even the Avatar. What kind of person was his father?

Looking down at the world map Naruto wondered how the Fire Nation was almost able to conquer a country like the Earth Kingdom when it was so much bigger. The Earth Kingdom was the biggest piece of land he had ever seen on a world map. He wondered what exactly happened to make it split into pieces. All he knew was that there was a war so catastrophic it cracked and shifted the land into the five continents that exist in his time. He didn't know who fought the war or how long it lasted but he did know it took the lives of six Avatars and they didn't like to talk much about it.

Growing up with no friends, one of the best perks about being the Avatar to Naruto was the ability to talk with his past lives to be. It was like gaining a thousand new friends, with whom he talked to whenever he was lonely, which was often. He learned a lot about the world from them, including the past nations, from the four nations that currently exist to all the way back when there was just one.

After paying for the maps, the two of them walked down the road in search of an inn.

"Didn't you say you were trained by your grandmother and this Ero-sennin person?" Azula asked.

"I was trained by lots of people, but they were the main two."

"Your father didn't train you, at all? Such a powerful man, he must have taught you something." She inquired.

Naruto shook 'her' head sadly. "No, he died the night I was born. Actually I've been an orphan my entire life."

The fire princess didn't expect that and all she could say was, "Oh." An awkward silence settled among them as they continued walking.

After several moments of neither one of them speaking, Naruto, wanting to break the silence, noticed that they were walking past a zoo. Grabbing her arm, 'she' dragged Azula after 'her'. "Hey, let's go here."

Azula looked at the zoo sign and frowned. "Why do you want to go to the zoo?"

"From the moment I got here I have been on the run, hiding out and fighting soldiers and rebels." Naruto explained. "I want to do something fun."

"But the zoo?" Azula said, obvious by her tone that she didn't want to go.

"Yeah. I want to see what bears looked like five hundred years ago."

"I'm sure they look the same now as they do in your time." Azula remarked dryly.

* * *

"Holy crap! That bear has a duck bill on its face!" Naruto exclaimed.

Azula pinched the bridge of her nose as Naruto tried to get her to look at the 'freaky duck-bear.' "It's called a Platypus Bear. Now hush up and get off the railing, people are staring." She hissed at him.

"Platypus Bear, wow. I have to get pictures or my friends will never believe this." Naruto took out a camera and snapped a picture.

Azula stared at the camera. "What is that?"

Naruto blinked dumbly, glancing down at the camera. "This?" 'She' looked back up grinning. "This is technology from the future called a camera. It lets you take a picture with just a click of a button." 'She' aimed the camera at Azula and took a picture. Because of the sunglasses Azula wasn't blinded by the flash but it still startled her a bit. Naruto handed her the photo and she looked at it.

It was different than any portrait she had ever seen, it looked more real. And that it only took a brief moment for it to happen made it even more impressive. "Do you have any more stuff from the future?"

"Oh yeah, plenty of stuff including two other cameras, but without a place to get the film developed they're pretty much worthless here." Naruto told her.

Azula stared at Naruto blankly, she didn't know what film was or what he was talking about. "Right." She turned and walked away. "You saw your bear now let's go find an inn."

"No!" Naruto whined as 'she' grabbed her arm. "We still haven't seen the entire zoo yet."

"Too bad. I want to go lay in a bed, on an actual mattress." Azula tried to pull her arm out of Naruto's grasp but Naruto held on.

"It's not even that late, you can do that later. Today is about fun, something that you are in desperate need of, now come on." Naruto dragged the girl after 'her'. The pair went around the zoo with Naruto taking a picture of every animal there.

* * *

After the zoo they stumbled upon a small shot put competition offering forty silver pieces to the person who could throw the metal ball the farthest. Eight men stepped up to compete, all of them getting between 12 and 16 meters.

Naruto had snorted and claimed to be able to do better than that.

This elicited laughs from the crowd while the men scoffed or glared at Naruto. One of them held the ball out, wordlessly challenging Naruto who accepted without hesitation. It was funny to see everyone's face when they saw a thirteen 'girl' throw the ball 23 meters.

Naruto was grinning in triumph until a big, bulky, bear of a man stepped up and threw it 25 meters. Naruto's jaw dropped as the crowd cheered and 'she' walked away dejectedly with Azula half-heartily consoling 'her'.

* * *

They then went to see a play called _Izalia: Peace Dreamer_; a Fire Nation tragedy about a princess who lived during a civil war and the trials she had as she tried to convince her family and the nobles to end the fighting and come to an understanding with the commoners they were at war with as they ignore her and tried to befriend the rebels but they reject her. Azula had always despised this story, especially since the story was real which meant Azula was in fact related to Izalia.

Izalia was such a weak and pathetic excuse for a princess, it was shameful. Azula herself would never try to understand the rebels, why should she? She was royalty, they were peasants. It was either obey her or die. The most infuriating thing about this story was during the big final battle when Izalia is accidently mortally wounded by her father when she jumps in and saves the rebel leader by taking the fatal shot meant for him. The Fire Lord and the rebel leader honor her death by making a truce and thus uniting the Fire Nation. A princess sacrificing herself for her people, such a stupid notion, it was the other way around.

Fixing a glare on the one who dragged her to this stupid play, Azula almost fell out of her seat when she saw Naruto fast asleep, snoring and drooling. Azula stared at Naruto incredulously; they weren't even twenty minutes into the play yet. Apparently the only thing Naruto paid attention to when hearing about the play was that it was set during a war, which to Naruto meant it was going to be action packed. In actuality there was very little action and most of it was in the second act and thus Naruto quickly grew bored. Her eye started to twitch as she growled lowly and a fire formed in her hand.

Naruto ran out the theatre, holding a burnt bottom, followed by a frantic crowd as a fire raged behind them. Azula walked behind them, calmly humming a tune.

* * *

Azula glared as she was twisted and jerked around by Naruto among the other people dancing to the music of the band playing nearby.

It had gotten dark and Azula had found it harder to see through the sunglasses.

"They're sunglasses, they meant to block out light." Was Naruto's response when she complained.

So she had insisted they go to an inn immediately. Their search lasted all of two minutes before Naruto heard music and wandered off towards it. Upon seeing the dancing people Naruto, despite her protests, had dragged her out to dance.

"There was a reason why dancing was banned. Stupid Zuzu."

* * *

Azula fell back onto the bed of their inn room with a groan. Naruto hopped on the other bed and released his henge. "What a day. You sure did pick a great town to go to. How lucky was it that they were throwing a festival today."

Azula grunted. Unlike the endless ball of energy five feet away from her, Azula was exhausted after today's activities.

Naruto smiled at the tired girl. "Thanks. I haven't had a day of just goofing off in while."

Azula raised her head to look at the blonde. "Why are you thanking me? You dragged me to all of those places."

"Yeah," Naruto didn't deny that "But you told me what each of those animals were."

'_That's because you were being loud and I didn't want people to stare.' _Azula thought irritably.

"And you suggested we go see that play, even though it was so boring." Naruto added.

"No, I said let's see aplay, because I wanted to stop walking. I didn't say let's see _that_ play, I told you it was stupid."

Naruto shrugged. "I thought you said that because there wasn't any romance or singing or other girly stuff like that."

If Azula had less class she would have snorted. "Please. I'm not into stuff like that."

"Is that right?" Naruto looked up thoughtfully. "You know if it wasn't for the fact that I was henged as a girl I'd say we went on a date today."

Azula sat bolt upright, staring at Naruto in bewilderment with a light blush staining her cheeks. "Have you lost your mind? How was that a date?"

"Think about it: we ate dinner, hung out, played games, and went to a play."

Azula listened to Naruto break down their day which did sound like a date, much to her embarrassment and irritation. "Yeah, but it wasn't." She stated in a tone that said don't think otherwise. "It was just friends spending the day with each other, nothing more." She noticed Naruto grinning at her. "What are you smiling about?"

"You just said that I'm your friend." He said, his grin growing brighter. "That's the first time you've admitted that."

Azula shrugged as she got up to go change into sleepwear. "So? It's not a big deal." It was a big deal. She had said that without thinking. After the whole incident with Mai and Ty Lee she had decided that she would do away with friends, an idea she had taken too far when she banished everyone around her. She had been afraid to have people who didn't seem to be trustworthy around and she ironically became controlled by that fear and that led to her downfall. She has accepted the fact that she is going to have to work with people who may not be completely loyal to her because despite the risks a ruler needs subjects and that's all they are; subjects, not friends.

Friends meant trust and she didn't trust anybody.

* * *

It was later in the night, hours after the festival ended and most people had retired inside. The only people outside were the some of the city guard patrolling around and drunks passed out in the street.

A trio of guards were walking down a row of houses when the ground started shaking. "It's an earthquake!" one of them called.

"No, not an earthquake! Look!" the second guard pointed behind them at a house that was sinking into the ground. They looked on as one by one each of the houses sunk into the ground, hearing the cries of the people inside. They watched in shock until they were also consumed by the earth.

All around town buildings were sinking underground. People desperate enough jumped out of windows before they were submerged.

Azula awoke to the noise and got up to look out the window. She saw large dust clouds in the distance and wondered what was going on when several nearby buildings started sinking. "What in the world-? Naruto!"

The boy groaned and turned away from her.

Azula's eye twitched. "Are you really sleeping through this?" She asked the lightly snoring boy.

Naruto suddenly shot up, awoken by his EDS (Early Danger Sensor), right before the room started shaking. "What is this?" Naruto shouted.

Azula looked out the window at the ground that was getting closer. "The inn is sinking."

"What?" Naruto ran over and looked out the window.

"We have to get out here now." She put a foot on the windowsill, prepared to jump.

"No!" Naruto cried. He had a bad feeling about going on the ground. He wrapped his arms around her waist and took off into the air.

Hanging high in the sky Naruto and Azula stared at the scene below them.

"What the hell is going on?" Naruto yelled as the last building disappeared. "Where did the town go?"

* * *

**Finally, a decent length chapter** **not longer than 10,000 words.**

**The grandmother will be mentioned a lot more during this story. Remember this isn't canon Naruto universe and eventually I will go into more detail about what is different along with how the four nations turned into the world Naruto lives in his time.**

**I looked it up and all of the writing in Avatar is in Mandarin, and Temujin is a character from the second Naruto movie who was from an unnamed continent that seemed to be based off of post-medieval Europe and all of the warriors from that continent used attacks that were named in English. If you don't believe me look it up on Naruto Wiki.**

**Until next time. **


	5. The Invasion Pt 1: The Underground Army

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender**

"Speech"

'_Thoughts_'

"**Demon/Spirit/Summon"**

"_Jutsu/Bending__"_

"_Japanese Speech_" (Yeah I changed it.)

**Yeah I know it's been awhile, I don't know what it was about this chapter. I took a longer break between chapters than I normally do and then when I did start writing I found myself only being able to write for like twenty minutes a day and for some reason these twenty minutes would always be somewhere between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. **

**Do you know how it feels to sit in front of the computer all day trying to think of something to write only to finally get an idea right before you are ready to go to bed? Let me tell you: it sucks.**

**I gotta give a shout out to ddcj1990 because you have been hungry for this next chapter.**

**I have some ideas about what energybending may consist of that in hindsight of writing this chapter I realize should be written in a pure Avatar story instead of a crossover but I don't have any ideas for an ATLA fic, so oh well, they're coming out in this story.**

**Oh and one more thing I wanted to address. It's not important but the EDS (Early Danger Sensor) is more inspired by Katekyō Hitman Reborn's Hyper Intuition and One Piece's Kenbunshoku Haki than Spider-Man's Spider Sense. And those who read those two manga should know how they differ from that and how they differ from Sharingan's prediction abilities so I don't want to hear anything that either.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Cavern**

* * *

Naruto stared at the barren land where just five minutes ago a town once resided, "What the hell just happened?"

Azula gazed at the scene below remembering the conversation she had overheard earlier.

_It's true; the whole town is gone._

_What do mean gone? It was destroyed?_

_No, it's gone; it disappeared. It was nothing but a large piece of land when I got there. No people, no buildings, just these weird square ditches, like as if all of the buildings were scooped out of the ground._

'_They weren't scooped up, they were dragged down._ _Just what was going on?' _Azula wondered.

Still staring at the ground, Naruto noticed some movement.

"What is it?" Azula asked him.

"There are people down there." He responded as he started to descend.

"And you're just going to go down there?" She asked incredulously, "Are you really that big of an idiot?"

Naruto slowed to a stop and looked at her, "What are you talking about? Those people are probably just survivors who need help."

"And you're going to help them? Did you forget that we are both wanted people? We can't expose ourselves to them." Azula looked down at the figures, "Plus there's a good chance that those people aren't survivors but the culprits themselves."

Naruto's eyes widened as he hadn't thought of that, "Well that's even more reason to go down there. We can kick their ass and force them to bring the city back." Naruto argued as he started to descend again.

It was only because Naruto was holding her while they were up so high that Azula didn't blast him in the face, "Will you just wait a moment." Naruto groaned but complied. "Just what do you think you are going to be able to do for them? Or if they are the ones responsible for this; you don't have any reason to get involved. You're not from this town, or from this nation, you're not even from this era." Naruto frowned at that. "You didn't make any friends from here so you didn't lose anybody. You have no connections to that town which means you have no reason to fight for it. Doing so is pointless; remember you are here on a mission, you don't have time to waste." _'And I don't want to risk the chance of_ _running_ _into Zuko's soldiers.'_

"Well actually I did lose something."

Azula looked at him questionably.

"All of my stuff from my time. I don't think it's wise to leave that stuff just lying around." Naruto said as he looked down at the people, "And besides, I've never been the type of person who can ignore people who are in trouble." He said with a smile. "And unlike me, you do have connections here. You are these people's princess, so isn't like your duty to help them in their time of need?"

Azula scoffed at his attempt to turn her logic against her, "Like I would go out of my way to help people who wouldn't think twice about turning me in for a reward."

"…Well when you say it like that I guess it makes sense. I understand." Naruto said after a moment. He took one of his arms out from under her and held it out, palm facing upward where a glowing blue ball formed above it. He let it drop beneath them where it formed into a large square. He landed on it and set Azula down, "You can stay here while I go down."

"Hold on. You're just going to leave me up here on this thing?" Azula, not comfortable with the idea of being on this thing that was floating in the sky without a visible mean of support, stomped on the platform to test its stability.

"Aw you'll be fine as long as you don't try to break it."

"Oh that makes me feel _much_ better." Azula sarcastically replied.

Naruto almost rolled his eyes before they heard a rumbling sound. Naruto narrowed his eyes, "That sounds like…"

"…earthbending." Azula finished with equally narrowed eyes.

They looked down to see several moving clouds of dust circling around and herding the survivors together. From out the cloud stepped out several men. Azula couldn't make out their exact features but she was able to recognize the large round hats they were wearing. She gritted her teeth, "First pirates invade our waters and now Earth Kingdom soldiers are invading our land. What the hell kind of job is that idiot Zuko doing?"

* * *

The Earth Kingdom soldiers stepped up to the Fire Nation citizens huddled them and an earth wall.

"Are these all of the ones left?" the apparent leader asked.

"Yes, sir. They were all that we found within the perimeter."

He looked at them. Four young children, a preteen boy, a couple of teenage girls; sisters from the look of them, a married couple with a baby, another married couple much older than the first, and two men, one with a broken leg. He sneered at them, "Dispose of them."

The man with the uninjured leg growled and stood up, "Who the hell do you think you are? Huh?" Throwing both arms forward, the man launched a fireball at the lead soldier.

The captain raised an earth shield to block the blast then with a sharp thrust of his arm sent a pillar of stone slamming into the firebender's stomach, sending the man flying back into the rock wall painfully. The earthbending captain snorted in contempt before turning and walking away, "Finish them."

Four earthbenders ripped out a large slab of earth and hurled it with the intention to crush the Fire Nation people.

"_Raidō: Raihadōha (Lightning Art: Lightning Surge Wave)!__"_

A blast of lightning shot from the right blasted the slab into rubble. Startled the soldiers turned to where the lightning came from, only for the four earthbenders to get hit by fire blasts that came from the left. Now officially alarmed, the soldiers wildly looked around, trying and expecting to spot a squad of firebenders.

"Dynamic Entry!"

They turned around just in time to see one of their own receive a flying kick to the face from a young boy that sent him crashing into a couple of his comrades. "I have been wanting to use that one for a while now." The boy said with a triumphant grin. Then from out of nowhere a girl, older than the boy and wearing green goggles, landed on top of two guys, knocking them out.

"Oi Hime-chan! What were you doing blasting them like that? We're not trying to kill them!" the boy shouted.

"Oh shut up and by the way what kind of ninja do you call yourself yelling like a maniac like that?"

He blushed, "T-that's part of the attack! You yell out so the opponent turns around and you kick them in the face." It was something Naruto just made up but unknowingly to him that was how the technique worked, only it was supposed to be used when there was only one opponent around. Though silly looking, it was a clever and effective technique. There was a reason why Might Guy was one of the strongest shinobi of Konoha, despite being an eccentric lunatic.

"A couple of brats trying to play hero?" The teenagers turned to the speaking captain, "How surprisingly noble for children of the _Fire Nation_." The man spat out Fire Nation distastefully, "But in the end it was a completely foolish decision—kill them."

Azula and Naruto looked at the twenty or so men advancing towards. "I'm going to give you guys twenty seconds to give up and return everything back to normal before I start beating you into the ground." Naruto told them. Their response was to hurl stones forcing Naruto to jump around and dodge until one struck him in the stomach making him stumble back. Rubbing his sore stomach, Naruto grinned darkly at the soldiers with a twitching eye. "Screw twenty seconds; I'm taking you down now!"

Naruto charged towards a trio of men, straight towards the guy in the middle, fist cocked back for a punch. The soldier smirked and stood his ground, fully confident in his ability to take some punk kid's punch. Naruto smirked at this, having expected the man to do just that. He was your typical earthbender, willing to stand and endure an opponent's attack. Just before reaching the soldier Naruto flipped over him, landing in a crouch behind him before bouncing back and punching out the guy to the middle man's right. Caught off guard, the earthbender was unable to block the roundhouse kick to his stomach or the uppercut that followed. Naruto jumped up and grabbed the third soldier's head, ramming his face into his knee.

"So he can actually fight without bending."Azula said to herself as she thought back to their conversation a few minutes ago.

"_You know if you go down there you can't bend."_

_Naruto turned to look at her with a frown. "Why not?"_

"_We are trying to lay low. Your firebending is very distinctive so you can't use that. Airbending…"_

"…_Windbending!"_

"…_is out of the question; there is only one other air- windbender in the world: the Avatar… of this era."_

"_Well what about energybending?" Naruto suggested. "No one knows I can use that."_

_She contemplated it for a moment. True, nobody but her knew he could energybend. Hell, she doubted people even knew what energybending was, she had certainly never heard of it before he used it on her. And since she had never heard of energybending she didn't know how it worked or what it's capabilities in battle were and she hated it when she didn't know all she could about a subject that could prove to be useful._

_But although she wanted to know more about energybending, which she could do by seeing it in action, she'd rather it be a secret weapon and be the only one to witness it instead of running the risk of her brother learning about it._

"_No. It's better to keep that a secret don't you think?" She paused. "And don't lightningbend either." Lightningbending was definitely something she wanted for her eyes only._

_Naruto groaned. That only left him with waterbending, which he wasn't really good at, not to mention that there didn't seem to be any water around. "Fine, no bending. That'll make things a bit harder but I can still manage. There are only what twenty, thirty guys down there?"_

"…_No clones either." She added._

_Naruto looked annoyed for a second. "Tch, you're not giving me much to work with." But then to her surprise he grinned challengingly. "Ah who cares, it's actually more exciting with a handicap."_

_She wasn't expecting him to be so fired up to fight after having all of those restrictions placed on him. With his attitude it was hard to believe that Naruto had entered the cycle as an airbender. Airbenders were supposed to be opposed to violence; avoid and evade, they'd rather flee than fight as Avatar Aang had proven to do during several of their 'meetings'. Naruto however was more confrontational, like a firebender, he seemed enjoy the thrill of battle. Maybe that was because the __**Air Nomads**__ were the pacifists and, airbender he may be, Naruto was not an Air Nomad. He was, supposedly, a ninja, a trained killer, which would go against everything the Air Nomads stood for._

_She sighed. "Fine, let's do this."_

"_Here." Naruto held out a pair of goggles. She eyed the goggles before looking at Naruto questionably. He shrugged. "You're the one who cares about not giving our identities away and the sunglasses were in the room."_

_Azula frowned; goggles weren't really her style but she, reluctantly, took them anyway. "Oh and one more thing," Azula said as put the goggles on. "Don't change into a girl."_

Turning away as Naruto ran at another group of soldiers Azula focused on a pair of earthbenders and shot two balls of orange fire that impacted with a raised wall of earth that was then sent flying towards her. Azula flipped over it and in the same motion sent a vertical arc of fire at them. Another wall was raised but it didn't hold up against the blast and the earthbenders were thrown back and knocked unconscious.

The ground rumbled as a line of rock columns surged towards her. She hopped to the side, letting the columns rush past her, before flinging her arm out and destroying a stone an earthbender was about to throw at her with a bolt of flame, which was quickly followed by a second one that struck the man in his chest and sent him to the ground crying out in pain. Taking a moment to enjoy his cries before turning away, Azula hands blazed as she mentally promised to make them all scream for daring to invade and attack _her_ nation.

The commanding soldier watched in shock and anger as his men were unable to take down the young teens. "Damn it, they're just a couple of brats!" He screamed at the soldiers. A feeling of dread began to well up inside of him as more of his men were taken down. An entire platoon of veteran earthbenders who fought in the war for years were being picked apart by one teenage firebender and her younger companion who was using his fists and a small blade he just pulled out of his sleeve.

Reaching out with both arms, the earthbender captain struggled for a moment before hefting them up; twin fountains of rock erupting from the ground around Naruto and the two earthbenders he was fighting. Naruto had just knocked out one earthbender with a hilt of a kunai to the head before noticing the towering waves of rock descending to crush them, barely getting a chance to yell before they got buried.

The rest of the combatants stopped to look at the scene with widened eyes.

A soldier looked at the man questionably. "Captain?"

"W-why?" Another asked shakily. "They were loyal men."

"Stop that." The captain snapped sharply. "Remember, the moment we came to the Fire Nation we threw away our lives and the mission became everything. If we have to sacrifice a few to preserve the mission, then so be it. If you have to sacrifice yourself to keep the mission going, then do so without hesitation. Everything is for the mission!"

'_This guy is insane.'_ Azula thought to herself. _'He's willing to throw away everything if it means victory against his enemies.' _Azula wasn't adverse to the idea of sacrificing someone if say the person was completely incompetent or if the gain was much greater than the loss, but self-sacrifice was a last resort when there was no other option left and would be a fatal or crippling blow to her enemies. This guy, however, sounded like he would throw his life away if it bought a small victory. He was a man with nothing to lose, the type of opponent Azula hated, because a man with nothing to lose had nothing to fear.

"The blame of their death rests on the Fire Nation, punish them for killing our comrades." The captain said to his men, who were sure enough buying into his words.

"'Sacrifice a few to preserve the mission?' Is that some kind of sick joke?"

Everyone's eyes widened as they turned to see Naruto dropping the two unconscious earthbenders near the civilians glaring at the captain.

'_It wasn't possible.'_ The captain thought. He saw the rocks fall on top of the kid; there was no way he could have survived that. And yet there he was, not only alive but uninjured too and had somehow also rescued his men. Why the boy did so, he had no idea. But what he really wanted to know was how he got out of that and behind him while carrying two grown without him noticing.

"You'd rather kill your comrades than fail a mission? Is that how the Earth Kingdom works!" Naruto yelled, charging towards the captain.

"As if a fire brat like you would understand!" The captain yelled back, bending multiple spires out the ground to slow down or hit the disguised shinobi but Naruto effortlessly moved around or leapt over them as they shot up.

"I don't want to understand!" Naruto shouted, now just a few feet away from the captain when another pillar rose up to strike Naruto. "Your nakama…" Naruto reared his fist back. "…are worth more…" His fist shot forward, meeting the rising earth head on and smashed it to pieces. "…than some stupid mission!"

The captain stood petrified in fear from the heated glare the fake brunette was sending him before Naruto suddenly vanished. "What in the—ugh!" Naruto reappeared underneath the man, landing an upper kick to his chin that launched him into the air, and then jumped up after him, appearing underneath the airborne earthbender so they were both parallel with the ground.

Twisting his body, Naruto landed a hard kick to the captain's right ankle. "_U!_" The force of the kick had spun the man's body around while Naruto had done a 360 and landed another roundhouse kick to his left knee, spinning the man several times. "_ZU!_" Striking the man in his ribs with a strong elbow spun the captain even faster. "_MA!_" The right hook to his shoulder had him spinning like a top. "_KI!_" Manipulating air currents to flip his body Naruto performed a back flip kick to the captain's chin at an angle that kept him spinning but turned his body upside down. "_Naruto Rendan!_" Naruto finished with an axe kick to the captain's feet, propelling the man towards down. "_Kaihan!_"

The captain drilled into the ground creating a crater and kicking up a cloud of dust. Azula's raised eyebrows were the only sign of her being impressed at Naruto's attack while everyone else gaped openly, the Earth Kingdom soldiers showing a bit more fear in their visage than the Fire Nation citizens.

Naruto landed on his feet shakily before falling to one knee, his henge disappearing in a puff of smoke. He grimaced as a wave of pain shot through his body. He had a newfound respect for Lee; to open the first gate and go through this pain then immediately after withstand an assault from Gaara was a testament to how tough Lee was. It was a shame they haven't fought yet, maybe when he got back to the village.

The roar of flames and anguished cries caught Naruto's attention as he looked over and saw Azula walking over to him, the rest of the soldiers whimpering on the ground behind her. Azula stood over him, taking in his appearance; sweaty, heavily panting, with one eye closed in pain. "You look pathetic."

Naruto's eye twitched.

"And you dropped your transformation, idiot."

A tick mark grew on Naruto's face. "No need to worry, I'll be fine in a minute, but thanks for the concern." He remarked sarcastically.

Azula raised an eyebrow. "Why are you in such bad shape? He didn't hit you."

Naruto shook his head negatively. "No, it was my _Uzumaki Naruto Rendan Kaihan (Uzumaki Naruto Combo: Revised Edition)._ Using that technique puts a huge strain on my body." Though after saying that Naruto was starting to feel the pain fade away, thank the spirits for his accelerated healing that let him recover in just a fraction of the time it would normally take.

'_Strain on his body?' _Azula frowned and looked over to where the captain crashed. By now the dust had settled enough to clearly see that the earthbender buried in the ground head first with his legs sticking out. Seeing this, Azula had to wonder how physically fit Naruto was, for him to be able to do that to a grown man with just his physical prowess. There wasn't a single part of that technique that a normal person would be capable of doing.

Naruto stood up, rolling his shoulder. "I know shouldn't have used that on a guy of his level but he seriously pissed me off talking like that."

"Amazing, you two took out an entire army of earthbenders!" A young voice said in awe.

Turning around Naruto and Azula spotted several of the townspeople walking over, the one who spoke being a boy a couple years younger than Naruto gazing at them in reverence. Azula rolled her eyes. An army? There were only like twenty guys. But that didn't stop the small smirk on her face from forming.

"Ah, are you guys okay?" Naruto asked.

"A bit shaken but physically we are fine, thanks to you." The old man answered.

A woman holding a baby bowed. "Yes, thank you very much."

Azula was a bit surprised no one was looking at Naruto oddly, seeing as he changed form in front of their eyes. They probably didn't notice because it was so dark and he didn't change that much.

The old man gazed around sadly. "It's unfortunate about the city though."

The firebender who was defeated earlier snorted. "What are you talking about?" He kicked one of the soldiers forward. "All we have to do is just wake them up and make them raise the city back up."

Azula scoffed. "That won't work."

The man, not so happy at his idea being dismissed so easily, turned on her. "And why not?"

Not intimidated in the least by the man, Azula coolly answered him. "Well other than the fact that they would bite their own tongues before helping us," Realizing that to be true, the man looked away, embarrassed. "To put it simply: they aren't the ones who did this."

At everyone's questioning look Azula explained further. "I very much doubt twenty earthbenders can sink an entire city in just a matter of minutes, much less earthbenders of their level. If they had, our fight would have gone in a completely different direction." She gave the unconscious earthbenders a look of contempt before continuing. "Most likely they're part of a much bigger army and they're just the clean up crew, sent to eliminate any stragglers, like us, who got away."

Azula's explanation had the townspeople murmuring among themselves, some not believing her while others were scared that more would Earth Kingdom soldiers would appear. Naruto began walking off. "Well if that's true then I'm going to go down there and making them raise the city back up." He declared.

"Forget it." Azula was quick to shut him down. "We can't afford to waste any more time on a hopeless endeavor."

The young ninja waved his hand dismissively above his head as he continued to walk. "Don't worry; I'll have the town back up by sunrise."

"That's in less than six hours." Azula informed him.

He stopped and looked back her defiantly. "So what? I said I would do it so I will." He then flashed Azula and the citizens a determined grin. "I don't go back on my word, dattebayo."

Azula just sighed in annoyance at his behavior.

Naruto then inhaled sharply as his eyes widened. "Whoa, you were right, there's a whole bunch of them down there."

"Down there?" Azula repeated.

"Yeah, there is a giant cavern underneath us. That's where the army is along with all of the buildings and townspeople." A troubled look came across his face. "There are a lot of them, way more than those Black Fire guys from before. They are going around hunting for any survivors from that attack."

Azula narrowed her eyes towards Naruto suspiciously. "How do know all of this?"

"One of my Kage Bunshin is down there." He said as if it explained everything.

Azula stared at him blankly, along with all the other townspeople who didn't know what a Kage Bunshin was. After several moments of Naruto not saying anything else Azula grew impatient and spoke up. "Are you going to tell me what that's supposed to mean anytime soon?"

"Oh, it's just anything my clones experience while they were alive gets transferred back to me when they are dispelled."

Azula regarded the blond curiously for a moment after that piece of information. So not only were his clones an instant army, they were low risk spies too. She really needed to look more into this ninjutsu of his; the ones she has already seen could be very useful towards her future endeavors, and they were supposedly just basic moves, with 'hundreds of more badass techniques', as Naruto so elegantly put it.

A scenario flashed through her head of her transforming into Mai and then walking through the palace unbothered straight to Zuko, his face brightening upon seeing her right before she stabbed him with one of Mai's knives, a horrified and betrayed look on his dying face as his 'beloved' smirked viciously down at him. This kills two birds with one stone as all of the evidence and eyewitness accounts leads to Mai being found guilty and executed. As the only heir left, she is free to rise up and take the throne with minimal opposition.

Azula almost immediately banished those thoughts, she was thinking far too ahead and wasn't considering some of the changes that had happened; some people of the Fire Nation were against the royal family, already she had fought against two groups who contained members who just a couple of months ago were high ranking soldiers loyal to her and her father. There were other flaws with plan, one being that even if that scenario did happen, her uncle would still be eligible to be Fire Lord and there was the fact that Avatar Aang and his friends wouldn't allow her to become Fire Lord without a fight.

Suddenly feeling frustrated Azula let out a deep calming breath before turning to Naruto. "How many of them would you say there are?"

"Uh…" Naruto squinted his eyes and crossed his arms in thought as he went through the information from his clone.

_~Flashback – Moments after the Inn sunk~_

_The Naruto clone screamed when the slowly sinking building suddenly dropped into a short freefall and crashed to the ground, the impact causing the clone to drop on his butt. Groaning Naruto stood up, rubbing his sore bottom and coughing from the dust that filled the room, and walked over to the window. It was unusually dark, even for this time of night; luckily he had always had exceptional vision: whether it was because he had a doujutsu or because of the Kyuubi he didn't know but either way he wasn't complaining. _

_Looking outside, he noticed many of the buildings around were mostly intact, though there were some collapsed buildings that didn't survive the fall, before he looked up and saw not a starry sky but a stone ceiling, confirming he was now in a windbender's worst nightmare, he was trapped underground. "Ah hell."_

_Noticing movement on the ground, Naruto looked down and saw people moving below. Figuring them to be just some of the townsfolk panicking through the streets, the bunshin shrugged and thought about what to do next, he was seriously considering on just dispelling to escape this and let the original figure all of this out._

_Hearing some shouting Naruto looked down just as a man flew out of a door. Stone clamps around his hands prevented him from getting up as man wearing armor and a wide brimmed hat walked out the door he just flew from. With a gesture of the hatted man's arms two slabs of earth were raised on either side of the firebender and Naruto winced as he watched the man get crushed to death._

_Several buildings to the right another man was ejected from the door, this one dressed similarly to the earthbender, as were the two men who came running after him, one crouching down to check on him, the other raising an earth shield to block the fireballs being hurled from someone still inside the house. Over the blasts Naruto faintly heard yelling coming from inside the building before the blasts stopped and it was silent. More armored men walked out holding spears that Naruto was sure had blood on them. _

_Naruto stared at the scene furiously, his knuckles white from how hard he was gripping the windowsill, as he paid more attention to the people moving in the streets. What he thought were panicking townspeople were actually groups of more than a dozen soldiers going to every building, attacking anybody they found and taking after anything of value inside. _

_Screams sounded from outside the room as Naruto snapped his head towards the door. Silently he rushed over, carefully cracked the door open, and peeked out. There were green clad soldiers in the hall pulling people out of their rooms, moving them along by spear point. Naruto grit his teeth as he watched this, a small growl escaping his lips._

_Unfortunately one of the soldiers heard this and spotted him in the doorway and with a frown stalked towards him. Cursing, Naruto shut the door and moved deeper into the room as moments later the door was kicked in and the soldier walked in looking around, annoyed when he didn't immediately spot Naruto. He searched under the beds and any other place the boy could be hiding to no avail before he noticed the window was open. Growling, the man stuck his head out the window, looking down for any sign of the boy but finding none before looking up towards the roof, another two stories up._

_The soldier growled again, he really didn't feel like climbing up there and he wasn't an earthbender so he wasn't up to jumping out of the second story window either. Glancing back to see if anybody else was watching, the soldier stepped away from the window and headed out of the room whistling innocently._

_He figured if the boy jumped to the ground one of the others was going to catch him and if he climbed to the roof, either somebody would spot him, though that was unlikely due to the darkness, or he would be stuck up there until they left, taking all food and supplies with them, so even if he did avoid capture, with no way to get to the surface he was going to starve to death, so there was no need for him to go out after the kid._

_Hovering above the city Naruto observed the city; it seemed the area around the hotel was in much better condition than some other parts of the city where there were more collapsed buildings and a lot more chaos going on. Fires were being started; buildings that were already on the verge of collapsing from the drop were falling. He witnessed a man tackle two soldiers to the ground, allowing his family to run away. He watched a group of soldiers push a boy just a few years older than him to the ground, raise a stone over his head and drop it. He saw a soldier engulfed in flames run out into the streets. People were trying to escape out of the city only to run into soldiers waiting at the outskirts of town and further out than that he saw a camp occupied with even more soldiers. _

"_Damn it, if I don't do something fast these people are going to get wiped out." Floating down to building located in one of the emptier parts of town, the clone grabbed a pair of kunai from his pack, dropped his and Azula's bags on the roof, jumped down into an alley, created a clone, and told it to dispel itself._

"What, no way! Why do I have to do that?_" _

_The first kage bunshin blinked in surprise before glaring at its copy. "_Because the boss needs know what's going on, idiot._"_

"Then why don't you dispel yourself, baka._" The second clone shot back, poking his finger in the first's chest._

"Because I created you to do that, dumbass._" The original clone responded, smacking the other clone on the side of his head. It wasn't hard enough to dispel the clone and only served to make him mad as he tackled the other clone and they wrestled on the ground._

_~ End Flashback ~_

Naruto groaned in annoyance at the abrupt end of memories.

"Is it normal for clones to be so rebellious?" Azula questioned. The pair had stepped away from the civilians as Naruto told her all of what his clone learned.

"No, as far as I've seen it's just me." Naruto said grumpily. The stupid second clone popped the first one, who was planning on running some interference until the real Naruto arrived. That damn clone had better be doing the same thing down there.

Azula jumped into one of the square ditches where a house used to be and stomped on the ground, finding it to be pretty solid. Just great. She was about to go into battle against of a force of Earth Kingdom soldiers several hundred strong with probably at least half of them being earthbenders… underground… at night… with her only ally being a thirteen year old half-trained Avatar… and she had no way of getting down there to confront them.

It wasn't the worst situation she has ever been in.

She cast a look over at the unconscious earthbenders. There was no chance that captain was going to budge but his underlings didn't seem to be as devoted to the mission as him and could probably be 'persuaded' into helping out.

Out of the corner of her eye Azula saw Naruto standing over the ditch. He looked at it for a second, then said nope and walked away. Looking at him oddly, Azula watched as he went to other ditches, looked at them for a moment, and said either nope, gave a curious hm or ohed interestingly. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for the best spot to enter." Naruto answered without turning around. He continued to walk to several more ditches before finally stopping. "Ah, right here! This is the tallest building still standing." He said, turning to the approaching princess.

"How do you-?" Azula paused, blinking her eyes before peering closely at Naruto, lifting the goggles to see clearer. She couldn't tell because of the darkness, but… "What's wrong with your eyes?" She lit a flame to illuminate his face and saw the black spiral pattern in place of his normal blue orbs. "What is that?"

"Hm? Oh I haven't shown you this yet have I?" Naruto rubbed his neck sheepishly. "This is my kekkei genkai, the _Reibaigan (Psychic Eye)._"

"Your kekkei genkai?"

"My bloodline limit, basically it's a special ability passed down by blood." Naruto explained.

"And that special ability would be what; to change the appearance of your eyes?" She surmised.

Naruto snorted. "No, it's the ability to channel my mind's eye through my normal eyes, which opens the door to other abilities."

"Like being able to see underground?"

"The Reibaigan isn't affected by things like darkness or physical barriers." Naruto told her.

"An interesting topic this may be, we'll have to get to it later." And they would. "Right now there's a more pressing matter at hand. Now how do you plan on getting down there?" She asked.

"With earthbending."

Azula arched an eyebrow at how casually he said that. "You sound pretty confident in your ability to get them to help us." She said, referring to the earthbenders.

"What? Those jerks? Who needs them?" Naruto said, causing Azula to look at him confusedly.

"Well who else do you expect to earthbend? You told me you're not an earthbender yet."

Naruto smirked slyly. "I'm not, but I have more than a few past lives that are." He made his signature cross hand seal. "_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!__"_ A clone popped up beside him. "You know what to do." He told it.

"Yosh!" The clone saluted before forming a hand seal. "Anyone in particular?" The clone asked.

"Hm," Naruto tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well these are Earth Kingdom soldiers who are attacking the Fire Nation so how about an Earth Kingdom Avatar who loves the Fire Nation." Naruto gave a cheeky grin that was mirrored by his double.

"You mean _him_?"

"Oh yeah."

"Awesome." The bunshin said before going through several hand seals then pressed his fists together. He closed his eyes in concentration and muttered, "_Reipou: Shiryou no __Gugen (Spiritual Art: Embodiment of the Dead Spirit)._" His whiskers and tattoos glowed before a cloud of dust arose and swirled around him, obscuring him from view before clearing out as fast it had appeared, revealing a brown haired, green eyed man. He wore dark green pants, a lighter green, dark-trimmed, sleeveless changshan, over, surprisingly, a long sleeved red shirt and wore no shoes. On a gold chain around his neck was red flame headpiece.

The man looked around frantically. "Where am I?" He noticed the two teenagers standing in front of him and dropped into a defensive stance. "Who are you?"

Azula, not knowing what was going on, watched the odd man with a curious eye while Naruto raised his hands in a placating manner. "Whoa whoa, relax Daiki-jiji."

The man identified as Daiki grew a tick mark on his head. "_Jiji? Who the hell are you calling jiji brat? I'm only thirty-three._" The man yelled in Japanese.

Naruto gave the man a dry look. "_You died when you were thirty-three, over a thousand years ago, you old fart._" He said then added as an afterthought,"_And don't call me a brat!_"

"_What are you talking about you little snot, I only died seven hundred and thirteen years ago._"

Naruto paused at that. "_Oh right, I'm five hundred years in the past. But that's still makes you ancient._"

Daiki continued to glare at him before letting out a laugh. "_Yeah I guess I am ancient._" He looked Naruto curiously, "_So you know who I am but I don't know you and I still don't know where this is or…_" He turned his body and thrust a fist out, a row of rocks rising from the ground and continuing past the city edge, "_…how I am able to bend again._"

"_Well I'm Avatar Naruto Uzumaki, I'm from the future,_" Daiki raised an eyebrow at that. "_This is where a Fire Nation town used to be until about an hour ago._" Daiki blinked rapidly and looked around at the empty plot of land. "_And you can bend because you are possessing the body of one of my clones._"

Daiki looked down at his body, giving it a once over before grinning at Naruto. "_Cool._" He said as he dropped out of his fighting stance.

Naruto grinned. This was why Daiki was one of more favorite past lives, despite being an Earth Avatar he had the open-mindedness of an airbender and a kick-ass attitude more commonly found in firebenders, a lot like he himself did, and could make light of any situation.

At the sound of a throat being cleared the past and future Avatars looked over at Azula staring at them with a scowl on her face, her arms crossed and foot tapping irritably. "Would the two of you mind speaking Mandarin?"

The both of them rubbed the back of their heads sheepishly. "Sorry."

Azula huffed through nose, "So what's happening here?" she asked, eying the strange man. "He doesn't seem to be just one of your clones transformed."

"No, he's one of my past lives possessing my clone. It's a technique I developed to let my past lives temporarily have a physical form in this world." Naruto explained.

"Oh where are my manners? I'm Avatar Daiki, at your service Lady…" Daiki introduced with a bow and charming smile that had Azula raise an amused brow at the unexpected show of class.

"Princess. Princess Azula."

At the name a look of recognition crossed Daiki's face, "The one who almost ended the Avatar Cycle last spring?"

Azula's eyes slightly widened for a brief moment, "When did I do that?"

"When you shot Avatar Aang right in the back with a lightning bolt while he was in the Avatar State."

"That would have ended the Avatar Cycle?" Azula asked and he nodded, "Interesting."

Seeing her face Daiki couldn't shake the feeling that he just said something that would cost him later on.

"So," The older Avatar started, changing the subject and adopting a more serious expression, "I'm guessing there's a reason you summoned me here."

"Yeah, that town I was talking about, it was sunk by an army of earthbenders who are still underground and probably on their way to another town." Naruto explained.

"And you want my help defeating these guys." Daiki guessed, trying to sound matter-of-factly but the cockiness in his voice wasn't hard to spot, "You know you're not supposed to get your past lives to fight your battles." He told Naruto, "But~ if you promise not make a habit of it I guess I could-."

"Actually I only need you to earthbend an opening right here so that I can go down there and stop them."

Daiki deflated hearing that, "So you called me here to dig a hole?"

"I haven't started earthbending yet." Was Naruto's response.

"Don't you know how to go into the Avatar State?"

Naruto looked down at the ground awkwardly, "Not in the correct way; it's only a boost of power when I use it. I know how to force myself into it and I'm able to keep my self-awareness thanks to my Reibaigan, and because of that I don't get the 'skills and knowledge of all the past Avatars' part of the state, just the channeling of energy part."

"You are one bizarre Avatar, you know that?" Azula commented and Daiki had to mentally agree with the girl.

'_You don't know the half of it._' Naruto thought to himself, unconsciously rubbing his stomach.

Daiki clapped his hands together, "So where am I supposed to make this hole?"

"Right here." Naruto said hopping into the ditch, Daiki and, to his surprise, Azula jumping in after him.

"Wait you're coming? I thought you were against this?" Naruto asked her.

Putting her hands on her hips, Azula frowned at him. "I am against this but I'm not going to be up here by myself. Besides there's a part of me that wants to personally crush these fools who thought they could invade my country."

Naruto looked at her with a sly smile. "Hime-chan doesn't want to be alone." He teased. "She's going to miss me if I'm gone."

He jumped away from the fireball she threw. "As if I would feel lonely! I just need to have any ally I can get, even if it's an idiot like you."

"Aw, Hime-chan's so mean."

"Alright if you two are done with your little love spat," Daiki ignored their indignant squawks and punched down, creating a hole that he jumped into. "Follow me."

Naruto was about to follow him when Azula spoke up. "Shouldn't we do something about the earthbenders up here first?"

"Eh, I already handled them. They're not going anywhere."

"What do you mean you handled them?" Azula tried to ask but Naruto had already jumped into the hole. Growling in annoyance Azula jumped after them, the hole closing up after her.

Nearby, the earthbender captain, now again conscious, went to move but found he couldn't, his body only twitching as he tried get up. Because of his immobility he was unable to see the symbols spread across his body that were the cause of this paralysis nor did he see the same markings on his comrades.

He looked up and saw a young child standing above his head, peering down at him curiously. The earthbender blinked as they stared at each other for a few seconds before the boy adopted a devious grin on his face which caused the captain to pale.

* * *

It had only taken a couple of pushes of earthbending before they were separated from the cavern by a thin layer of rock.

"It's not as deep as I thought it would be." Azula commented.

Daiki widened the space for more ground room before creating a hole just big enough for one person to drop through. Light dimly shined through the hole as fires from below provided some level of light in the otherwise dark cavern. The three of them peered down the hole and Azula frowned as she saw that it was still a pretty steep drop to the ground. "Looks pretty bad, are you sure you don't need my help?" Daiki asked them.

"Thanks but people of the past shouldn't be handling the problems of the present." Naruto said.

"Should a kid from the future really be saying that?" Daiki asked with an amused grin.

"Touché."

Daiki's grin dropped a little as the conversation served as a reminder that Naruto wasn't supposed to here. Many of the past Avatars felt that his presence in this era might possibly have some negative effects on the Avatar Spirit as two Avatars have never existed simultaneously before so it was unknown how this would affect the two boys. Would the power of the Avatar be split between them and the strength of their bending halved? Or would there be a power struggle with their bending fluctuating as they subconsciously and spiritually fought for dominance over the Avatar Spirit? These were just a couple of possibilities some of the past Avatars came up with.

Daiki mentally snorted.

It was obvious from Naruto's unusually strong bending that the former wasn't happening and there hasn't been any signs of the latter either. In fact it has been about a week since Naruto came here and Aang wasn't even aware of the time traveler's existence yet. '_Fools, doubting like that. It's no wonder they've never earned Bhūmi's favor.'_

"Something wrong?"

Blinking, Daiki found both teens looking at him curiously, one staring with more suspicion than the other, and realized how deep he had been engrossed in his thoughts. "No, it's nothing." He replied with a dismissive wave. Naruto looked like he didn't fully believe him and Azula narrowed her eyes further. Daiki chuckled nervously. "I should really be going now, if you don't need me for anything else?"

"Oh, no we're good." Naruto said, confused about the man's sudden desire to leave.

"Right. Hopefully the next time you summon me it will be for a less serious situation."

"Yeah, next time we'll spar." Naruto said with assurance.

"Ooh, sounds interesting." A spar against another Avatar? Daiki was looking forward to that, "You better not die down there, kid."

The two males looked at each other with challenging smirks before Daiki disappeared in a burst of smoke and dust.

Smirk still on his face Naruto stood up and turned halfway towards Azula, "You ready to do this?" He asked, holding his hand out for her to take.

Azula huffed, "Of course." She grasped the hand and was pulled closer to him, his arm wrapping around her waist before they wordlessly jumped down the hole.

* * *

**So yeah that's the end of Part 1. The chapter was getting a bit too long and was taking too much time so I split it here. Good news is the next chapter is already mostly written so it will be out real soon.**

**I saw the first episode of Korra earlier this week and it was… interesting. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either, it was okay. Hopefully the second episode will be more action-packed.**

**And on the Naruto side I know it's really late to bragging about it but I called it, Naruto and Kurama (I'm still laughing about that name.) are getting along. Sasuke fighting against the bad guys was something I did not see coming and who else but me thinks that second Sage Mode came out of nowhere.**

**I'm ranting, sorry. I've got to go make dinner.**

**Until next time.**


	6. The Invasion Pt 2: The Cavern

**Disclaimer**: **I really wish I owned Naruto or Avatar: The Last Airbender but sadly I don't and that really sucks.**

"Speech"

'_Thoughts_'

"**Demon/Spirit/Summon Speech"**

'_**Demon/Spirit/Summon Thought'**_

"_Jutsu/Bending__"_

"_Japanese Speech_"

**Can it be? A new chapter? In less than a month? You better believe it, but don't get used to it people.**

**So here it is: Part Two. Enjoy**

* * *

It was almost ironic, the man thought to himself, stroking his beard as he watched the flaming town from a distance, that after years of these people burning down countless towns it was now their towns that were going up in flames. It was even more ironic that they were the ones who set fire to their own town in the first place.

"This is just further proves that the Fire Nation is nothing but a land of monsters who know only of destruction. And they have the gall to call the Water Tribe savages." Not that he didn't think they weren't but the Fire Nation didn't have the right to talk as if they were above them.

"*cough cough* Geez, is this going to happen with every town we get?" He heard one of his men complain. He looked down at the soldiers who have yet noticed him standing behind watching the burning town with them. Many of them had their shirts over their mouths to filter the smoke that was filling the cavern. He understood the man's annoyance as the smoke was becoming a bother to him too, he had already sent people to make a couple of air holes, but he was more annoyed by that this fire meant that there were going to be more downed men.

When first started they had been a force of six hundred and seventy-three men. Now he wasn't crazy enough to believe a force of that size would be able to wipe out the entire Fire Nation but he thought with this method of attack they would take out at least one island and it seemed like it would go that way at first after taking down several small villages with relative ease and only losing two men. But then they decided to go after the bigger cities and towns and after only three towns they were down to five hundred forty-nine soldiers, of which only three hundred and eleven men were still able to go on while the other two hundred and thirty-eight were too injured to go on and had to be left behind and that number was bound to rise again after this fourth town.

"The problem is the general is having us make the drop too short; too many fire bastards are surviving the fall and worst, too many of them are in good enough condition to put up a fight." Another soldier spoke.

"Is that so? He spoke, startling the men. "I was actually thinking we should go back to bringing down villages for awhile, you know, taking it easy a bit going after the smaller targets and allow some of those injured men we left behind to heal and catch up. But that deeper hole idea isn't a bad idea, we should employ that the next time we hit a town."

"General Fong, sir! I wasn't implying that you weren't doing a good job sir, it's just—."

"At ease soldier, there's no need to explain, every soldier has 'suggestions' for their superiors once in a while." Fong said in an understanding tone, then he narrowed his eyes and spoke in a harder tone, "But in the future I should hope you would be confident enough to bring up any 'suggestions' you have for me face to face instead of uselessly speaking behind my back."

"Y-yes, sir."

"General," Fong turned to soldier standing behind him, "the clean-up squad, it's been a while since they went up and they've yet to return."

Fong frowned, "You believe something has happened to them?"

"It's never taken them this long before."

"Get a squad up there to see what's going immediately!" Fong ordered.

He growled as the soldier hurried away. If someone discovered them and the military has been informed then it was only a matter of time before multiple battalions would come and scour the island looking for them, which would be the end of the mission, and their lives, as they wouldn't stand a chance against a force like that. Even if by some miracle they were able to escape from not only the island but the Fire Nation too and got back to the Earth Kingdom, they had violated the ceasefire order, they would be declared traitors and be destined to either get arrested and executed or live the rest of their lives as fugitives.

Fong shook his head of the negative thoughts running through his head. He had to relax. The clean up squad being late didn't necessarily mean that the mission had been compromised, there was probably just a stronger resistance up there than anticipated, or they goofing off. Neither notion was particularly good but they both more comforting to think about than his previous thoughts.

Fong was pulled from his thoughts as heard his men making a commotion about something. "What's going on? Did something happen?"

Several glanced back at him. "You didn't see it?" One asked.

"See what?" Fong questioned, his brows furrowing.

"A large amount of flames just went out all of a sudden. At first I was seeing things but then it happened again seconds later."

Fong's eyes snapped towards the town examining it carefully. He hadn't paid attention to how much fire there was so he wasn't exactly sure if there was less than before so he watched to see if this phenomenon they were talking about would happen again.

And not five seconds later he did see something happen, but it wasn't the sight of flames snuffing out, but a flash of blue light accompanied by a loud crack. Fong's eyes widened.

"Was that thunder?"

"Underground? Pfft, no way that's possible."

"No, there is one possibility." Fong stated, walking forward. "It is said that the most powerful firebenders are capable of generating lightning." Another crack of thunder sounded, and this time they were able to see the bolts of lightning. "I had thought it to be only a story, but now…" Now one of those fabled monsters was down there attacking his soldiers. "Get more men down there now!" Damn it, this was not supposed to be happening.

* * *

Naruto dropped another soldier with an electrified fist before spotting a group of soldiers approaching. "Ugh, these bastards are everywhere." Placing his electrified hand flat on the ground, a line of electricity shot forward, as it traveled the line split off into lines that continued to branch off until they spanned the entire width of the street and electrocuted the soldiers. "_Raidō: Chiryuu (Lightning Art: Ground Current)!_"

Looking at all of the downed soldiers littering the street Naruto turned around and made an annoyed sound when he saw more soldiers coming. "Aren't you dressed yet?" He yelled at a building.

"I'll be ready in a moment so shut up." Azula sounded from inside.

"I don't have a moment!" Naruto shouted while dodging stone projectiles. "I mean seriously, you're not going to a ball, it's a fight! It doesn't take more than ten minutes to get dressed for a fight!" A rock whizzed inches past his face, momentarily shocking him before he frowned and kicked out a strong wave a wind that blew away the rocks and threw the soldiers off their feet. "Two! That's how many minutes it took me to get ready!"

"I don't have the luxury of being able to just throw my clothes on like you." Azula said stepping out of the door, fully dressed and her bag slung over her shoulder. "These are quality clothes; it takes time to put them on properly."

Naruto rolled his eyes before frowning at what she just said. "Are you saying my clothes aren't quality? These were…" A rock hit him in the side of the head and sent him sprawling to the ground. He laid there for a few seconds before he stood up, walked back to the exact spot he was standing previously, and looked at her with blood dripping running down the side of his face, "…given to me by a noble so they have just as much 'quality' as your clothes."

Azula and soldiers sweatdropped at this. _'So he's just going to ignore that happened?'_

"Oh and…" Naruto unleashed a blast of lightning that electrocuted several soldiers. "…that hurt you bastards!"

'_I guess not._' Azula thought as she sweatdropped even more.

The ground beneath Naruto rose up and launched him into the air. Four of the soldiers, earthbenders, moved in position to attack as soon Naruto hit the dirt, but the blond ninja pre-empted their attack by kicking off the air and shooting down towards the earthbenders head on. "_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu).__"_ Half a dozen clones popped up beside him and started to rapidly rotate their bodies while expelling fire from their hands, which Azula noticed was the standard orange in color instead of Naruto's usual red and black, causing them to be covered in a shroud of flame. "_Bunshin Ryuuseiu (Clone Meteor Shower)!_"

The earthbenders hastily pulled up slabs of earth that held up against the suicide bombardment but Naruto flew around and punched a soldier with a flaming fist hard enough to send him slamming headfirst into the earth wall.

"The kid just multiplied. What is he?" A soldier watching the Naruto fight against earthbenders asked.

"Wait a minute that kid is firebending, wasn't he airbending a minute ago?" One guy wondered out loud.

"You mean you're just now realizing that?" He heard a girl question and turned around just in time to get a boot to the face.

Azula watched the man go down and turned to the soldiers who were staring at her angrily. "Now you've done it girly." One said as he drew his sword and charged at her, getting a scoff out of Azula before she kicked a blast of fire in his chest that sent him to the ground screaming in pain.

Seeing her take out another man the rest of the soldiers drew their weapons or dropped into bending stances. "She's a firebender, non-benders don't engage her one-on-one."

Four of them came at her this time, one with a spear taking the lead and jabbed his weapon at her stomach. Azula sidestepped the thrust and grabbed the spear by its shaft then spun and landed a flaming roundhouse kick to the head of another soldier coming at her from the right then turned back to the spear and broke it over her knee. With surprising strength she yanked on the piece the soldier was still holding and pulled him into a vicious fiery kick.

Immediately after the man dropped Azula was forced to duck under the swing of a sword and danced around several more slashes before using one of the broken pieces of the spear to whack the swordsman's wrist and force him to drop the sword and stabbed the other piece with the spearhead into his stomach. The last guy rushed her with a loud war cry but was quickly blasted away by a shot of fire.

She then rushed at a trio of men, sending a blast of fire ahead of her. The two holding weapons dropped back while the third unarmed soldier stepped forward and raised a wall to block the blast, just as Azula wanted him to do. She leaped up on top of the wall and flipped off and over their heads, throwing her bag down into the earthbender's arms as she somersaulted over him, getting the man to regard the bag confusingly for a moment, a moment Azula didn't waste to send two bolts of fire that caught the two non-benders in their face while still in mid-flip. The earthbender angrily tossed the bag aside and shifted his stance to attack but was too slow and received a chest full of flames.

Azula turned to send a wave of fire at another group of oncoming soldiers but was beaten to the punch when a strong wind swept them aside and slammed them into a building. Naruto landed next to her and let out an impressed whistle as he looked at the fallen bodies, "Wow, someone's been busy. I guess you're not as weak as I thought." The glare Azula sent him went unnoticed as he nudged one of the fallen men with his foot.

"I defeated nine guys in the time it took you to defeat three."

"Three? I think you need to get your eyes checked Hime-chan, I took out way more than three." Naruto claimed as he pointed further down the street. Azula looked to where he was pointing and felt her jaw drop slightly when she saw a larger group of beaten up soldiers on the ground unconscious.

'_There's like twenty guys. How did he take them all out so quickly without me noticing.' _

"Hey these guys are dead. You killed them?" He asked incredulously while giving her a dry look. "You couldn't hold back just a bit?"

"You don't sound that upset." Azula noticed. At worst the blond sounded slightly annoyed.

"Hey I'm not ten, I know death may happen in battles like these. Hell, I've killed before too." Naruto told her.

"Really?" That was a bit of a surprise. Naruto didn't seem like a person who had taken life before, he was too naïve and innocent, but appearances were deceiving and assassination was one of the aspects of being a ninja.

Azula gazed around at all of the bodies littering the streets and sighed when as she realized that there were still hundreds of these guys left down here. "We can't keep this up for much longer."

"What are you talking about? I can do this all day." Naruto said. "These guys are a lot weaker than I than I thought they would be."

Azula resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his declaration and instead just sighed. "Well be that as it may, we'll eventually lose if we continue to fight them as groups, we don't have the stamina for that," She was winded from fighting just nine of these fools. Damn, she really needed to get back into shape. "especially seeing how you are giving your opponents a second chance to attack us by not finishing them off."

"So what, we should attack these guys all at once?"

"Oh that's a much better idea. Instead of dragging it out let's go and get annihilated instantly." Azula sarcastically stated.

"Then what the hell should we be doing?" Naruto shouted, getting frustrated.

"Right now, nothing." Azula replied.

"Nothing?" Naruto echoed incredulously, displeasure clear in his voice.

"Yes, right now isn't the time for us to go on the attack. We need to wait, stake out the situation, and look for an opportunity to strike to show itself."

Naruto groaned and slumped some. "I hate reconnaissance." He whined. A rush of memories suddenly entered Naruto's mind causing him to perk up some. "Good to know that stupid clone was doing something useful." He muttered before making around fifty clones. "Grab all of the guys who are still alive and put them in that building." The clones nodded and got to work. "I'll seal them in there and then we can go."

Azula, who had been off in her own world staring at the clones with a calculative eye, snapped out of it when she heard that last part and shifted her gaze towards the younger boy. "Go? Go where?"

"That clone that was down here gathered all of the survivors together and hid them in a safe place." Naruto informed as he pulled out a brush, some ink, and several slips of paper on which he started writing on. "Since we're doing reconnaissance I say that would make a great base."

The princess harrumphed at that. "I wouldn't call it great but it'll do." Besides this may be a find a solution to the biggest dilemma she was having with this whole situation: manpower.

* * *

Azula didn't bother to hide the look of disappointment on her face as she looked at the potential manpower.

After he dumped the soldiers in the building and placed those papers on each wall, which he assured her would keep them trapped inside, Naruto lead her on a winding course through the city, sneaking past the Earth Kingdom soldiers and putting out any fires they encountered until they reached a large eyesore of a building that Azula recognized was made by Naruto's strange wood technique. Tall, tilted, and spiraling at the top before spreading out to look like a blooming flower, it was lucky that its odd shape made it look damaged from the fall like all of the other buildings around.

There were more people inside than Azula expected there to be but most of them didn't seem to be of the warrior variety, and the handful that did were, like everybody else in the building, sporting injuries. Children, older folk, and the more heavily injured were laid down on mats wrapped in makeshift bandages made of torn rags and clothing. Those who had loved ones with them were being tended to while others not so fortunate were laid down and left to wait for the only doctor to come by, but with so many patients and so little supplies all he was really doing was simple patchwork.

"So much for building up a force to fight with." Azula sighed before she looked at the blond boy and frowned. "Why haven't you changed your appearance yet?"

"Uh, well~," Naruto scratched his cheek nervously. "the thing is, my clone forgot to transform while he was in front of these people."

"What!" Azula exclaimed loudly, drawing stares from the other people. Azula subconsciously adjusted the goggles on her face. "That's still no a reason why you couldn't have transformed before we came in here." She said in a much quieter voice.

"But they already know what I look like and I don't wanna use any more chakra than I have to." Naruto whined, causing Azula to pinch the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

She followed Naruto to one of the rooms upstairs where he knocked on the door. "Come in." A voice said from the other side. Naruto opened the sliding door and they entered the candlelit room where inside were four elder people.

The first that drew her attention was a man sitting up in a futon, he looked to be in his early sixties with white hair falling to his neck from underneath the bandages wrapped around his head and a short beard on his chin, his right arm was also bandaged and was pulled into a sling. The fact that he had his own room despite not nearly being the most heavily injured person here, the way the others in the room were gathered around him, and the fine quality of his night robes, barring the dirt, tears, and missing sleeve, Azula guessed he was someone high ranking, most likely the mayor. And the white haired woman behind him, the only female of the four, wearing equally fine and ruined robes was probably his wife.

Sitting on either side of the futon were two men who seemed to be opposites of each other. Sitting on the left with his legs bent underneath him was a skinny man with long white hair that went down to his mid-back with a topknot on top his head and a small mustache, he too was wearing night robes and also a pair of round glasses that were cracked in one of the lenses. The tanned bulky man on the right looked to be the youngest of the four as he was the only one whose hair wasn't white but was instead a graying brown that was pulled into a ponytail with also a short but thick beard along his jaw line. He was also the only one who wasn't wearing nightwear but instead wore the uniform of the domestic forces.

The officer looked at Naruto with a small frown and grunted. "Hmph, so you actually made it back. I had my doubts that you would be able to."

Naruto frowned and was about to say something when the mayor spoke up. "Now now, be nice to our young savior. I for one am relieved to see you back safely, and I see you found your friend." The nervous look he sent towards Azula when he said friend told her he knew who she was.

'_And he doesn't want me to know that he knows? …Because the little weasel rat probably plans on giving_ _Zuko_ _any information he can while not becoming the person I would first suspect.' _Azula smirked. It was nice to see that people still knew to be afraid of her. Well Azula would continue to let the fool think that she was unaware he knew, after all, the mayor was getting ahead of himself. Chances were already low that he would get back to the surface alive and they just got a lot lower.

However it seemed that neither of their plans were meant to happen as the officer exclaimed, "Princess Azula!" The man bowed before Azula, getting her to raise an eyebrow at how he seemed to be happy to see her.

The mayor paled, briefly glaring at the man before glancing fully at Azula with a nervous smile then bowed, his wife and the other old man doing the same. "Princess Azula, forgive me, I didn't recognize you."

"Oh please, you knew who I was the moment I walked into the room." Azula remarked as she took off the goggles. She watched the mayor pale further and gaze fearfully at her as she stepped in front of him. "But we can worry about that later, right now we need to focus on getting ourselves out of here and back to the surface."

Learning that he wasn't in immediate danger the mayor relaxed some. "Yes, you are right of course."

"Does that mean you already have a plan to get us out of here?" The spectacled old man questioned in a meek voice.

"Who do you think you're talking to?" The officer spoke glaring at the man. "This is the woman who conquered Ba Sing Se with only two people by her side, of course she has a plan."

"Oh yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that." Naruto said.

Azula gained a faraway look in her eyes. Ba Sing Se seemed like such a long time ago, back when everything was going right for her. "To be honest when I first infiltrated Ba Sing Se my only intention was to capture the Avatar, I wasn't expecting an opportunity to take Ba Sing Se to arise."

"So you're saying you got lucky?" Naruto sounded unimpressed, he had been hoping to hear a more exciting and action-packed story.

Azula scowled and shook her head. "No, I was lucky that an opportunity arose but it took brain and skill to take full advantage of it and make it work in the end, but that's not what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say was that an opportunity hadn't arisen yet." _'But now with all of this talk about my victory over Ba Sing Se along with what that idea I had earlier I might now have something.'_ "Excuse us for a moment." She dragged Naruto to the other side of the room.

"Say, how many clones can you make?" She whispered.

"I don't know." Naruto shrugged. "A lot. A while ago in a fight I made almost two thousand clones." He looked back at Azula to see her gaping at him.

"Two thousand?" Her shocked look was then replaced by an angry one. "Why didn't you tell me that sooner!" She hissed, "With just half of that we could have launched a successful attack earlier." And she wouldn't have had to come here and expose herself.

"Seriously?"

Azula shushed him before responding. "Of course. A couple hundred earthbenders don't stand a chance against one thousand Avatars."

The excited grin growing on Naruto's face fell. "Whoa, uh, I can't make a thousand Avatars."

Azula frowned. "But you just said you can make two thousand clones."

"Okay one: I only did that once and it used up almost all of my chakra. And two: I said I can make one thousand clones, not one thousand Avatars."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Azula asked with a blank stare.

Naruto sighed, how could he explain this. "The Shadow Clone Jutsu is a technique that splits your chakra evenly among each clone. One clone and your energy is split in half, ten clones and your energy is down to one tenth. Most Jōnin only have enough chakra to make ten or so clones at the most. That's why the Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, which creates many more clones, is considered a forbidden technique, it consumes a lot of chakra."

Azula frowned at that. So much for her being able to create an army of herself. But Naruto was able to make hundreds of clones. How much chakra did he have to be able to pull that off. "Wait, what does this have to do you being unable to 'make Avatars' or whatever."

"Chakra isn't the only thing that's split when making clones, chi is split too." He told her. "The more clones I make…"

"…The weaker your bending becomes." Azula realized. That's why his fire was orange earlier. "Okay, how many clones can you make while still being able to bend."

"I can have up to eleven clones while still being able to bend multiple elements but anymore than that and I'm down to just bending one element until I hit twenty-nine, then I can't bend at all."

Azula bit the inside of her cheek. So it was either a dozen half-trained Avatars or thirty benders, not nearly enough for what she had planned.

She made an irritated sound. "What's the point of making so many clones if they can't bend or do any jutsu."

"They can still fight." Naruto retorted.

Azula scoffed. "What, with close combat; they're destroyed after just one hit."

"And they can still use basic jutsu." Naruto added.

"Basic jutsu? You mean like your Henge?"

Naruto nodded. "Yep, that and the Kawarimi."

"Really?" Azula asked, a small smirk forming on her face. She could work with that. "Naruto go back out into the city and take out as many Earth Kingdom soldiers as you can within the next hour but bring back at least one of them along with any firebender you run across." She turned to the others in the room and pointed at the officer. "You, go out and gather any firebender who is still able to walk and create a flame."

"Right away Princess." The man bowed then walked out with an eager look on his face that caused Naruto to sweatdrop as he followed him out the room.

'_A fanboy? No at that age you're no longer a fanboy, you're a creepy weird guy perving after a teenage girl.'_ Naruto cringed at the thought.

"You have a plan?" The mayor questioned hopefully yet wearily.

"I do." And it would largely depend on Naruto's abilities and some great acting. If everything went right she could make the army surrender and get them to raise the city back to the surface.

* * *

Fong paced around in his tent angrily while stroking his beard. "What the hell is going on?" Fong wondered out loud. He stepped out of his tent and grabbed one of the nearby soldiers. "Where is Colonel Xin? I asked for him over twenty minutes ago."

"I don't know, sir. The men you sent to get him haven't come back yet."

Fong growled lowly and returned back in the tent. What a time for his second-in-command not to be around.

It has been almost four hours since he first sent reinforcements into the city and more a than a fourth of the men who were supposed to be down there have yet to come back, Fong doubted they would, and a good number of the ones who did come back, especially the earthbenders, had serious injuries.

Many of the heavily injured squads confirmed the existence of the lightning wielding firebender but not one of them have been able to take him down so he was still down there. _'Or she.' _There were several different stories concerning the identity of the grandmaster, some said it was a man, some said it was woman, and some even said it was a child. Whoever it was, they had made quite the impression on those they had an encounter with; they were terrified of the lightningbender but seemed to be in awe too and their stories were starting to get to the other men.

If the powerful firebender wasn't bad enough, the follow-up squad he sent to check on the clean-up has yet to return. He feared that the worst has happened and the squad has been captured, and that meant it wouldn't be long before they would be forced to take a last stand.

The flap opened as a man walked in. Fong turned and scowled at him. "It's about time you got here Xin. What took you so long?"

Xin average looking, a man with no physical features that would make him stand out in a crowd. Fair skinned, green eyes, brown hair tied into a topknot, no facial hair, average height, not buff, but not skinny either, he was fit. He was probably the plainest looking man here and he also happened to be the most cold-hearted man here. A skilled swordsman, Xin was known for showing no mercy to his enemies, capable of killing even women and children without hesitation. It was probably the main reason why the colonel had been transferred so many times.

It wasn't that the man was bloodthirsty; Xin was just a cautious person who strongly believed in the idea that a dead enemy was enemy who could never hurt you again. It was just that Xin sometimes took that idea too far by not stopping at soldiers but also going after civilians who he felt could become potential enemies like wives or children who may turn vengeful, something that unnerved many of his past comrades and commanders.

Xin bowed. "My apologies, sir. I was held up with something."

"Oh?" Fong said, prompting him to explain.

The colonel hesitated before, looking around cautiously, before speaking in a hushed tone. "I believe Colonel Du has been captured."

"What? What are you talking about?" Fong demanded.

"No one can find him and in his tent there are signs that a struggle took place. I should also report that two of our majors and a lieutenant are also missing."

Fong cursed. Of course this was happening when everything else was falling apart. "Tell the men to be on high alert for an intruder in the camp and order the men in the tunnel to double their efforts."

Xin turned to leave but was nearly knocked over by a soldier who came rushing in, out of breath and a distressed look on his face. "What is it?" Xin asked.

The soldier wheezed. "From the town… huff… Fire Nation troops… huff… a lot of them…"

"What?" Fong bolted out of the tent and rode a wave of earth to the nearest ledge that overlooked the city and saw them.

When the soldier had said a lot of troops Fong had expected maybe around one hundred soldiers, but there were more than twice that amount marching towards them, about the same amount men he had that were still good to do battle.

"Were they already in the city?" Fong wondered.

No that couldn't be; they had scouted the city beforehand and there had been no sign of military within the area besides the local authorities. So how did they get down here so fast? And with so many of them they should have been noticed, it didn't make any sense.

"What should we do, sir?" Fong jumped at Xin's voice, having been too caught up in the approaching army to have noticed Xin's arrival.

Fong looked at the Fire Nation troops and estimated they would reach the camp's position in less than ten minutes. "Tell all of the men to prepare for battle and gather all of the hostages."

"Hostages?" The surprise in his voice caused Fong to raise an eyebrow at Xin, who quickly recomposed himself. "Err, right. Because of all of our injured our numbers are now down to being equal to a force of this size so we'll need any advantage we can get against them." Xin started to walk away. "I'll get right on, sir."

"Equal in numbers?"

Xin halted his steps at the General's voice. "Did you not hear me, colonel, when I said tell all of the men to prepare for battle."

The swordsman looked at his leader incredulously. "Even the injured ones? But if you send them out to battle they will…"

"What, die?" Fong gave Xin a hard stare. "Need I remind you that when coming here we abandoned the idea of surviving? The only value our lives have now are to keep the mission going forward. Those men serve no purpose lying in a tent, they belong on the battlefield. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Xin responded stiffly and quickly walked away.

"Your plan better work, Hime-chan." He uttered quietly.

* * *

"Come on, hurry up!"

"Let's get moving people!"

It was seven minutes later and the Earth Kingdom soldiers were mostly scrambling to prepare for battle against approaching Fire Nation troops. Unfortunately getting ready was proving not to be a smooth operation. Most of the soldiers were resting and were completely unprepared for an attack. Seriously who expects a Fire Nation army to attack while underground?

Another problem were the many commanding officers that no one could find. The lack of leadership was making for poor organization; a lot of men didn't know what to do with themselves, some didn't know what was going on, there were men who were actually still sleeping.

"Hey you! Get off your ass and come on!" One soldier yelled as he kicked a man sleeping on the ground in his side.

A man poked his head out of his tent and saw all of the soldiers rushing by. "What's going on?" He called out to one.

"You idiot, Fire Nation troops have been sighted and they'll be here any minute now!"

The man's eyes widened in shock as the flap opened wider and revealed three other men in the tent and the card game they were playing. "What?" They threw the cards down and hastily put on their armor.

"Come on, move your feet." A soldier said to a struggling woman he was dragging along. The hostages were mostly women some men brought back to have their way with while the rest were older and younger people soldiers didn't have the heart or stomach to kill and instead captured them, without letting Xin know.

Several injured soldiers grumbled as they hobbled towards front lines. "I can't believe the General is making us fight in our condition."

"I know, but the joke's on him because I'm only going as far as the back of the battalion. Far enough away from all of the heavy action but close enough for Fong to believe I'm truly participating."

A dry look was thrown in his direction. "I don't get you man. If Fong had said that you weren't allowed to fight, you would be raring to fight while claiming you could take out fifty firebenders."

"Hey it's my body, Fong doesn't have the right to decide for me whether I'm good to fight or not."

"Actually he does have the right, it comes with being the general."

"Whatever. I'm not fighting unless we're pushed back and I have no other choice, which at that point means we are doomed, but until then a fireball won't be getting within ten meters of me."

As soon as he made that declaration a fireball impacted the ground in front of him. He fell backwards in shock then looked in the direction it came from, the opposite direction of where the Fire Nation troops were supposed to be coming from, and saw more flying through the air.

"What the hell?" Fong shouted as he saw the flames which illuminated the area enough to reveal more troops just as numerous as the ones coming from the direction of the city and much closer, actually now moving through the camp and were driving the slower moving soldiers towards where the rest had been gathering. "How did they flank us?"

They stopped several meters in before a teenage girl stepped forward and spoke loudly. "General Fong, you are outnumbered and surrounded! Surrender now or be exterminated!"

Fong let out a scoffing laugh as he stalked forward. "You say that as if you won't exterminate us anyway if we do surrender. And what is the meaning of having a kid come out and act like she's the leader? Are you insulting us!" He stopped a good distance across from the girl. "You think I wouldn't strike down a child?" He sent a line of earth columns rushing at her.

Instead of frantically jumping out of the way like Fong expected, the girl moved her arms in wide arcs, electricity crackling off her fingertips before a lightning bolt surged forward, meeting and disrupting his attack. "I think you'll find that I'm not your average kid, general." She said smirking at Fong's shocked expression.

Fong narrowed his eyes at the girl. "So you're the lightningbender." His eyes then widened in recognition. "You are-! What is the Witch of the Fire Nation doing here? Last I heard you were driven insane after your brother dethroned you and he locked you up in the madhouse."

Azula raised an eyebrow at that 'Witch of the Fire Nation' title, not particularly impressed by it but not hating it either, but when Fong mentioned her humiliating defeat by the hands of her brother, any trace of amusement on her face was gone, replaced by a cold anger that she couldn't manage to keep out of her eyes. "You can't believe everything you hear."

"Apparently." The rebel general agreed. "So your brother lied about your about condition to the world, this just proves that this whole peace thing he's trying to propose is all a ploy to lure us into a false sense of security and get us while our backs are turned and our fool of a king and the Avatar, the naïve boy that he is, fell for it."

Azula scoffed. "Please, you're giving Zuko too much credit, he's not that clever nor is he underhanded like that. My brother wears his heart on his sleeve, the experiences he had during his banishment made him sympathetic towards your inferior kind. As for me, yes, he tried to lock me up but I managed to escape. So make no mistake, my brother and I are enemies, the weak minded traitor wants peace between the nations while I want to lead the Fire Nation to reign supreme."

Fong stroked his long beard as he stood there studying her for a moment before speaking. "Passionate, I admit, but am I supposed to believe the words of a known manipulator."

"You think I'm lying? What would be the point of that? You don't think you're getting out of this, do you?" She gestured to her much larger army that was surrounding his.

"Maybe, maybe not, but we won't know unless we try." Fong shifted into a battle stance. "Either way we're not giving up without a fight!"

"Actually giving up doesn't sound so bad right now." Someone voiced from behind.

Fong turned around, glaring angrily at the crowd of soldiers. "Who said that?"

"Yeah I'm with him." Another one spoke.

"Me too."

"Yeah, to tell you the truth I was never totally into the whole giving up on life thing we had going."

Fong stood in disbelief as more and more of the soldiers began to speak their agreement getting Azula to smirk at him. "It seems your men don't share your level of commitment."

He growled, clenching his fists in rage before snapping at his troops. "What's the matter with you people! You can't just give up!"

Xin stepped forward. "What's the point of going on? They outnumber us and a good number of us are injured. Do you really expect us to have the will to engage in a suicide battle like this when for us there's nothing at stake? If we were defending our homeland with lives of our countrymen at stake, we would fight until our last breath, but this is just us pointlessly throwing our lives away, with no honor behind our deaths. If we surrender, sure we'll live hard lives as prisoners, but we'll survive."

Fong grabbed Xin by the collar and got in his face. "What are you going on about? No honor?" He shoved Xin to the ground and turned to the rest of his soldiers. "Were any of you listening to me before we came here? I said if honor or glory is what you were looking for then this isn't the place to find it. Surrender? We all know of the Fire Nation's 'mercy'. You think they are going to live after what we have done?" There was chatter as the men realized he was right. "What would you rather happen? Death by surrender or death in battle?"

"BATTLE!" They yelled as they prepared to fight.

Azula listened to their war cries for several seconds before sighing. "So you aren't going to give up huh." Guess it was time for Plan B. "I noticed that you have hostages. What a coincidence that we have hostages too." A snap of her fingers and a number of tied up Earth Kingdom soldiers were brought forward.

"A hostage trade?" Fong questioned skeptically. After all that would just give them more soldiers to fight with immediately after, more soldiers than they had captured civilians. It would be foolish of her to offer that, unless she had some kind of trick planned.

"Oh please, like I would trade seventy-two soldiers for not even twenty civilians." Azula remarked.

Fong frowned. That, if anything, made him more wary. Even if it wasn't for a hostage trade, she had brought those captured soldiers out for a reason.

"General Fong, sir." a soldier, one of his majors, stepped forward and spoke in a low voice, "She isn't fully telling the truth. It's impossible for her to have seventy-two of our men."

"What do you mean? Why is that impossible?" Fong questioned.

"Because eighty-three of the men came back."

"So?"

"We only sent one hundred and fourteen into the city."

It only took a moment for the general to do the math and figure out what was wrong before he narrowed his eyes at the princess. "What are you playing at?"

"What do you mean?" Azula asked with feigned innocence.

"I mean you are lying about the number of my men you have up there, there's no way you can have seventy-two." Fong stated.

"And why is that? Because that's forty-one more men than there should be?" She questioned making Fong tense.

"How do you know that?"

"How do I know?" Azula tapped her chin as if she were pondering. "I wonder." Her eyes briefly flickered to his soldiers.

Fong's narrowed eyes widened in surprise. "What did you do?"

"Who knows? Did I lie about how many men I captured to make your loss seem bigger and psych you out?" She shrugged. "Maybe. Or did I really capture seventy-two of your men and send forty-one of mine to infiltrate your camp?" The smile she gave made his hair stand on end. "More than likely."

Fong shot a wide-eyed look at the men behind him who were regarding each other with fear, caution, or hostility. "You're lying!" Fong yelled almost desperately.

Azula let out an exasperated sigh. "Why would I lie?"

"Why would you tell us?" The general countered. "Why not have them strike while we were still unsuspecting?"

"You may know that they are there but that doesn't help if you can't pick them out. If I give the signal I'm sure each of my men can take out at least two of yours before they are stopped and I don't need to tell you how huge of a blow would be to you." Azula paused to let the scenario play in his head, enjoying the fear growing on Fong's paling face before going on. "But the thing is, I don't need them to defeat you Fong. Even if they hadn't infiltrated, my force would still be superior to yours; like your second-in-command said; you're surrounded and outnumbered, many of your number are injured. But if that wasn't bad enough now your troops are in disharmony; they don't trust each other. They are weak and I can easily destroy the lot of you. But I don't want to." She said, confusing him. "I'm giving you a chance to get out of this alive. Just surrender and raise the town back to the surface and I'll let you leave the Fire Nation with your lives."

Azula expected the general to spend several frantic moments pathetically trying, and failing, to think of some other option he could take to get out of this before surrendering to his desire to live and yielding so it was a surprise when instead of doing any of that Fong's frightened features turned stony as he looked straight at her. "Well if those are our options then I choose to fight."

Azula grit her teeth at his stubbornness. "Why are you so quick to choose death?"

"Either option we choose means death for us." Fong said. "We came to the Fire Nation against the Earth King's order, if we were to go back home we would be executed for treason."

Azula frowned, she hadn't been aware of that fact.

"If we are going to die then I'll do it while going about on our mission and taking out the infamous Witch of the Fire Nation definitely falls into that category." The general slipped into a bending stance. "I would rather die as the general who exposed the Fire Nation's grand farce than run away and be the insane traitor who was executed after failing to prove his 'insane conspiracy' only for the Earth Kingdom to fall because his conspiracy was actually in fact true." He stated heatedly.

Azula looked at earthbender almost amusedly with crossed arms. "Our grand farce? You mean that thing you were going on about how this peace offering is just a trap to strike you while your guard is lowered? What does your mission have anything to do with that?"

"Since we couldn't convince Earth King Kuei to back out of this treaty we decided to get Fire Lord Zuko to do it. We're going to deal a blow against the Fire Nation too large for your nation to ignore that will provoke you guys into attacking us before we stupidly let you in even more."

The man was mad, Azula decided.

"Are you insane?" And apparently she wasn't the only one who thought so. All eyes were on Xin as he glared at the men who were supposed to be his allies. "That's your big plan? For the first time in one hundred years your home is experiencing peace and you want to ruin that by starting another war? How the hell does that save anyone? You're endangering your people's lives. You try to make it seem like you are the only ones who are going to get hurt by your actions but what about the soldiers who will lose their lives fighting _your_ war? The people who will get harmed during _your_ war? The families who will be affected by of _your_ war? What about them?"

Azula blinked back her surprise. His outburst, while unexpected and unplanned, seemed to be the final blow that knocked the fight out of the Earth Kingdom soldiers. _'They actually look ashamed. Who would have thought that that hot-head could be such a moving speaker.'_

Xin, or rather, the fake-Xin was forced to hop to the side to avoid falling in the sinkhole that opened up beneath him. He glared up at Fong who was glaring back, his hand still had outstretched from the attack.

"I can't believe that you of all people are backing down from this. I guess even the most ruthless of men can turn cowardly." The bearded man sneered at him before gazing back at Azula and once again assuming a battle stance. "If you're not going to help us then at least shut up and get out of our way. I have no need for-." Fong cut off as he heard the sound of weapons clattering on the ground. Looking back he saw that his men were throwing their weapons down and dropping out of fighting stances, all resolve to fight gone from their faces. "Cowards!" He roared at them. "You're all cowards!"

"Give it up Fong. You no longer have the support of your men, you're alone." Azula spoke, knowing from experience what that meant. "You lose. You can't hope to put even a dent in our forces."

Fong bared his teeth and growled. "I don't need to defeat your army, I only need to kill you. After that I don't care what happens to me!" He pulled up a large boulder and hurled it forward before rushing forward in its wake. Azula rolled under it as the men around her were forced to scatter and popped back up with a blast of fire from her two fingers. Fong tilted his head, the blast just narrowly missed his face as he felt the intense heat pass by his cheek.

A stomp shot up two head sized stones into each hand which Fong threw at her one after the other but both were knocked back by a wave of fire which was followed by a second horizontal wave. Fong bent a pillar earth that launched him over the flames and landed behind Azula, sending a wave of earth outwards but she too used her bending to propel herself above the attack.

"Oh man, they're both so even." The head officer commented that caused one of the masked soldiers next to him to scoff.

"Even? What fight are you watching? This is going to be over in a minute." The masked soldier said getting the man to watch the fight closer to see what he was talking about.

Still in mid-air Azula shot several blasts down at the general. Fong erected a barrier that withstood the assault before he broke it in several pieces that he was going to hurl at the firebender but found she wasn't in the air anymore. Looking around he spotted her to the right just as she finished going through the lightning technique. Fong hastily gathered the rocks into a wall but the loose rock shield was unable to hold against the lightning blast and Fong was blown back, bouncing on the ground a couple of times.

Fong groaned as he tried to push himself to his feet but a foot flipped him on his back before stomping on his chest and two fingers burning with a small flame pointed a few inches away from his face. Gulping nervously, Fong looked up from the hand to the face.

"Yield." Azula commanded.

* * *

Up on the surface the man who didn't have a broken leg, also known as Ye, sat in front a campfire with a bored look on his face and looked around. It has been several hours since that girl and the weird boy went underground to get the city back – a hopeless quest in his opinion – and the survivors had moved to the outlying forest, dragging the immobile earthbenders with them. The only one besides him who awake was the old man who hadn't been interesting company.

"The sun is going to rise pretty soon." The old man spoke.

Ye looked over to the horizon. "Yeah you're right, it'll probably be just another few minutes."

The old man looked over to where city used to be. "I wonder if those kids are alright."

'_I doubt it.'_ Ye thought to himself before speaking out loud. "Who knows but it looks like that kid's not going to make his deadline."

The old man chuckled. "Don't count him just yet. He still has a few minutes left."

The earthbender captain let out a barking laugh, letting the two Fire Nation men know he was awake as they looked at him. "A blizzard would roll in before your city will get raised."

"Shut up." Ye threw a rock at his head. Even if he agreed with the man the soldier didn't mean he could say it out loud.

Just then the ground started to rumble and shake, startling the three men and waking everybody else up. They turned to the city and watched as buildings rose out of the ground just as the sun started to rise over the horizon.

"The city!" The citizens rushed into the unearthed city except for Ye who stared at it in disbelief.

"I don't believe it. They actually did it."

"I-impossible!" The earthbender captain exclaimed. "They couldn't have beaten General Fong and the others."

Ye laughed at the earthbender as he walked away towards the city. "Two kids beat an entire army of you guys, no wonder we were kicking your ass during the war."

The buildings, while all there, were pretty damaged, some had even completely collapsed. It was going to take a lot of time and hard work before the city could return to its former glory. The only building that wasn't damaged at all was a strange looking one that didn't look like anything the old man had seen in the sixty plus years he had lived in this town. As he and his wife stared at it the door opened up and a man stuck his head out, squinting from the sunlight before a smile broke out on his face and he fully stepped out. "It's the sun. We're above ground again!"

Cheers sounded from inside as more people poured out of the building with happy expressions on their face as they celebrated being under the sun again. Having heard the commotion the other survivors rushed over, reuniting with separated family and friends.

The ground rumbled again, not as much as the last time, as a large hole opened up. Azula, the mayor supported by his wife, and the head officer walked out followed by the soldiers, both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. They walked in line several people wide, three Earth Kingdom soldiers in the middle and four Fire Nation soldiers on the outside, two on each side. Now out in the sun it was apparent that some of the 'Fire Nation soldiers' weren't wearing actual armor but were instead makeshift consisting of scraps iron and if one were to pay closer attention they would notice the armored soldiers didn't look right, the color was off and the masks and helmets weren't exactly right. Fong was up at the front, tied up in chains as they were lead through the city, many curious citizens following them, until they stopped the at a clearing on the outskirts of the city.

Azula looked around and surveyed the area a bit. "This will do." She said and the Earth Kingdom soldiers were moved to the middle of the clearing except for an unrestrained Xin, something Fong noticed and glared at.

"I don't understand Xin. You didn't have any objections to the plan at first; you helped come up with it even. What happened between then and now that changed your mind?"

Xin shook his head. "Nothing happened." He said as he saw more Earth Kingdom soldiers being herded into the clearing. "Because I doubt Xin changed his mind." He gestured to two soldiers carrying a second unconscious Xin.

Shocked, Fong and his men could only wildly swivel their heads back and forth between the two in alarm and confusion. "What sorcery is this?" He cried.

"Not sorcery, ninjutsu." The general's jaw almost unhinged itself when in a puff of smoke the conscious Xin changed into the younger and smaller Naruto. "The _Henge_… er, Transformation Jutsu." Almost all of the Fire Nation soldiers and many of the Earth Kingdom men revealed themselves to be clones as they too dropped their henge.

Everybody, even the Earth Kingdom soldiers, looked at all of the clones in wonder except for Fong who looked outraged. "You tricked us you—! What the hell are you?"

"Me? I'm the Avatar and a shinobi."

"Avatar? _The_ Avatar?" At Naruto's nod Fong exploded at the young boy. "What is that? I know the Avatar, I've met him before! You don't even look anything like an Air Nomad!"

Naruto rubbed the back of neck sheepishly. "I would bend two elements to prove I'm not lying but with all of these clones out I can't bend anything right now." He paused then added, almost to himself. "Though I do have to dispel them anyway to do this next part so…"

He dispelled all of the clones and started forming hand seals. Seeing that all of the clones were gone Fong took that as an opportunity to attack as he rushed towards the blond ninja with a loud cry.

'_This had better work for once.'_ Naruto thought to himself as he held the final hand seal. "_Mokuton: Renchūrō no Jutsu (Wood Release: Serial Pillar Prison Technique)!_" The charging Fong was knocked back as a beam of wood shot out of the ground in front of him, many more followed after it as they formed cages around the green-clad soldiers. Adding more chakra Naruto formed more beams of wood underneath the cages that pushed them higher in the air, separating the earthbenders from their natural element.

Naruto took several deep breaths as wiped the sweat off of his face. After making of so many clones that also maintained a henge for several hours and then creating all of these prisons, two acts that alone would have be a huge drain on even his massive chakra reserves, it was no wonder he was almost out of chakra.

Speaking of the cages, Naruto sweat dropped as he looked at the different shaped prisons. Some were dome-shaped, some were circular, some were pyramid-shaped, and there were even a few spiraling cone-shaped ones.

'_Not one of them is box-shaped.'_ Naruto noted with a twitch of hiseye. _'Oh well, it did the job at least.'_

Floating up to where Fong was being held Naruto raised one hand and formed a tornado above it. "Windbending," With his other hand he lit a small flame. "And firebending. Who else besides the Avatar can do that?"

Fong stared wide-eyed at the two elements in his hands before Naruto cut off his bending then floated back down and started walking away. "Who- Who are you?" He heard Fong call out to him.

Naruto looked back over his shoulder, not stopping his stride. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the Crimson Avatar; the Avatar from the future. Remember it!" He announced with a smirk on his face.

"I still say we should kill them." Azula muttered when he walked by.

Naruto sighed, shaking his head while rolling his eyes, "We won, give it a break already. Besides we can't kill three hundred guys just like that."

"Sure we can." Azula said moving after him. "It would be simple. You have them trapped in wooden prisons; a few small flames would be all it would take to turn them all into charred corpses."

Naruto paused, looking back at her with a 'what the hell' look.

"What?" She asked obliviously.

* * *

The sun was much higher in the sky when, after spending the time being fed, receiving many thanks, and getting some much deserved rest, the two teens – mainly Azula – decided it was time to leave.

"We owe you a great debt Avatar." The mayor said as he stood in front of Naruto, his advisor and the chief officer at his side, and most of the townspeople gathered even further behind them. "If not for you our buildings would still be buried and our people dead. Thank you." He bowed, the two men behind him quickly doing the same.

Naruto smiled. "Well I can't take all of the credit. Most of the thanks should go to Hime-chan." He looked back at the girl leaning against a building tapping her foot impatiently waiting for him. "If she didn't come up with that plan I don't know what I would have done." And that was the truth. He had gone down there with a goal but no plan in mind on how to achieve it. It was amazing to him that Azula was able to bluff them into surrendering like that. He was beginning to see how she conquered a kingdom with just a few people by her side.

He shot her a grin that she rolled her eyes at and turned away. She wished that he would remember they were wanted people and hurry it up already. "Honestly, what is there for them to talk about? All these people have been doing is thanking us, I'm sure they've gone through every form of gratitude possible." She looked over and met the eyes of several children who smiled and waved at her. The princess huffed and turned away, though unknowingly her lips curled into a small smile.

_[What's this? First you go out of your way to save some peasants.]_

'_Oh great,' _Azula turned her head, narrowing her eyes at the image of her father in a nearby window, a frown on his face.

_[And now you're feeling good from these simple gestures of thanks from people who should bowing before you, thankful for just being in your presence.]_

"I am not feeling good" She hissed then paused. "…Well I am, but not because of them."

_[So it's your victory over those soldiers then.] _'Ozai' deduced. _[I admit you did well. But Princess Azula, needlessly risking your life to play hero for these people?]_ 'Ozai' shook his head disappointingly._ [You were taught better than that.]_

"It wasn't like that; I just felt it would be better to take care of this problem now before it became any worse later."

'Ozai' harrumphed. _[Lying when things start to get difficult. How typical of you.]_

Azula glared at him. "What do you know? You're not even real."

_[I know it was that boy who convinced you to go down there.]_ 'Ozai' replied harshly, making her flinch. _[When did you become so weak as to let some imbecile manipulate you?]_

Azula turned on him, her face scrunched up in fury. "I'm not being manipulated! I'm just going along with what he wants until-" Azula cut off when she noticed she wasn't actually alone anymore. Naruto stood next to her, face pressed against the glass, peering inside curiously.

"Who are you talking to?" He asked.

Azula glanced back at the window, the image of her father gone, and then shook her head. "Nobody. Are you finished here?"

"Uh, yeah but-"

"Then let's go already." She said sharply as she stalked down the road.

Naruto blinked before taking one more look through the window, shrugging when he found nothing then jogged ahead of his traveling companion. Azula watched as he threw one last wave over his shoulder to the townspeople.

'_I'm just going along with what he wants until some chance of power comes along, and after I seize it I'll be the one in charge.'_

* * *

**A/N: This chapter was supposed have more of a focus on Azula's strategic abilities than the actual fighting but as I was writing I realized something; I'm not very good at making gambits, which shouldn't surprise me seeing how I'm more interested in fight scenes than anything else. Or maybe I'm not as bad as I think I am, I don't know. Someone told me it wasn't a bad plan but I don't think it was all that great. I don't know you tell me.**

**About Naruto being overpowered right now; that's on purpose. First of all this is a Naruto who already knows how to fight, and in action mangas when the hero knows how to fight in the beginning those first few fights tend to be curb stomp battles. Also I'm trying to show that people from the Avatar-verse wouldn't stand a chance in the Naruto-verse, let alone my Naruto-verse, except for the most powerful benders i.e. Aang, Toph, Ozai, Iroh, and the other White Lotus benders. And even then only Aang and Toph would stand out because they're twelve and they're that strong while the other old guys wouldn't be so impressive and would have been more like your average, nameless, in-the-background Jōnin.**

**Something I forgot to address in last chapter, the Reibaigan. Several people have been complaining that giving Naruto a doujutsu will make him overpowered. I admit when I first made up the Reibaigan it was something to get rid of Naruto's weakness of genjutsu. But while I was writing chapter 3 I realized I wanted a flawed Naruto so I thought about taking away several of its abilities to make it weaker before I thought of an interesting idea. I won't explain it all now but I'll tell you this; the Reibaigan, Kyuubi, and the Avatar Spirit will all have an effect on each other that should balance things out hopefully.**

**So, thanks for reading Chapter 6, I hoped you enjoyed it. Next chapter things are moving forward; their party of two is going to become a party of three.**

**Till next time**


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